Episode 71: Jack Blahous And Marc Campagnaro (AWA Wiffle Ball), Mariners Don't Give Teoscar The QO, And Analyzing The Fit Of Yoshinobu Yamamoto

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number seventy one of the Marine Layer podcast. We'll talk to Jack Blayhouse and Mark campin Niro from Awa Whiffleball League founded out of Edmunds, Washington, the most viewed whiffleball league in the United States. Really fun conversation there. The Mariners off season is underway. Taskar Hernandez does not get his qualifying offer, and Jerry it's also made a couple of trades. You know, he couldn't help himself with the league off season underway. We'll also talk about Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the top Japanese pitcher on the free agent market. Do the Mariners have a chance at him, What does his market look like, what are his strengths? A whole lot to discuss there as well. 00:00:40 Speaker 2: You're a reminder before we start the show. If you're listening to the podcast, check us out on the video side on YouTube too, and if you do that, like comment, subscribe, turn the notification bells on over there. If you're watching on YouTube, you can listen wherever you find your podcast on the audio side. If you do that, download our episodes lead up. Leave us a five star review those help us out and on social media. You can check us out on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube shorts at marine Layer Pod. 00:01:08 Speaker 1: Let's get it rolling and we welcome Youte to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording here on Monday, November six. The off season is underway, and as I said in the open, Jerry Depoto could not help himself. 00:01:37 Speaker 2: Are those of the two biggest moves he'll make all off season? Yes? 00:01:40 Speaker 3: Or no? 00:01:40 Speaker 2: Right now? 00:01:41 Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a lot of people who think, so, what. 00:01:45 Speaker 2: Do you think? No, No, I don't think so. As funny as it would be to roll with that bit, no, I don't think so. It is true that he can't help himself. If I have my numbers right. We'll have to ask Jordan Schusterman about this, who actually keeps the Excels redsheet. But if I have the numbers right, that is the one hundred and fifty fifth trade that Jerry Depoto has made in his Mariner's tenure. Those two combined make it one fifty five. 00:02:09 Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, I think it was the one today you were talking about that made it one fifty five, the one for Blake Hunt in exchange for Tatum Levins, who was a catcher at a high A. Everett. 00:02:21 Speaker 2: Well, I think that was one fifty five. I think the Riley O'Brien trade was one fifty four. 00:02:26 Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so we are up to one fifty five. I did see Jordan's tweet it was one fifty five overall. How many was it with the Rays? I think it was thirteen? My phone's over here, I can check. 00:02:35 Speaker 2: Really when I'm trying to think, was it thirteen with the Rays? That sounds about right, because I mean, the Mariners and Rays make trades all the time. It's funny they haven't made one in a little bit now up until today, I guess because they made the small, little minor league trade. But yeah, it's funny. I always imagine Jerry being at the winter meetings and just hanging out in some some boardroom with all the executive from the Rays just kicking their feet back. It's like, you guys want to make a trade today, you guys bored? And they're like, sure, why not? You want to throw in a minor leaguer for one of our minor leaguers. Jerry's like, well, I got nothing to do. Why not. 00:03:14 Speaker 1: It's fourteen with the Rays officially, so. 00:03:16 Speaker 2: Fourteen okay, so one off from the thirteen we said, yeah, one hundred and fifty five trades. I'll tell you what, Mariners fans aren't bored. They might not be happy with all the moves he always makes, but you're never bored. Because offseason rolls around, you're probably getting notifications about Mariners trades. 00:03:33 Speaker 1: A lot of the roster turns so far has been clearing some forty man roster spots. That's why Riley O'Brien was gone, and we saw Penn Murphy get claimed off of waivers as well. So those moves are to clear up some forty man roster space. With the move we saw today for Blake Hunt, that doesn't really shed a whole lot of optimism that Tom Murphy is gonna be back and catching in a backup role for the Mariners in the twenty twenty four season. I would imagine Hunt's going to get an opportunity to compete for that backup catch role. I know we want them to have a backup catcher who they don't feel like they have to yank after seven innings and put Cal Rawley back in there on a day off. I don't know if Blake Hunt is quite that guy, but he's gonna get his opportunity in spring training when he's gonna compete for that backup catch role. That's I guess that's all I really took away from that. It doesn't really there's no needle mover there. Jerry cannot make any real splashes. I would say free agency wise or trades wise, because the big trades you gotta wait. They take a while to come come about. But as of recording this, tomorrow on Tuesday is when free agents can officially sign. Now we might have some news tomorrow and this you know this. We we could add on to this segment as well tomorrow once once guys can't officially sign. 00:04:46 Speaker 2: Oh, no, free agency started here on Monday. It's going on right now. 00:04:49 Speaker 1: Oh what I thought it was Tuesday. 00:04:51 Speaker 2: No, it started at two pm R time today, so it's it's going on right now. There could be a move right now. Also one little I. 00:04:57 Speaker 1: Don't know all then, Sorry, I apologized listening audience. 00:05:01 Speaker 2: I don't know ball well. Also one little quick other thing. I don't think Riley O'Brien was actually a forty man guy. I just think the Mariners ended up trading him, So just one little. 00:05:11 Speaker 1: Note wow, but brutal segment for me. 00:05:14 Speaker 2: Hey, it happens to the best of us. But I was just gonna say that Jerry, Yeah, he can't help himself in making trades. I liked Riley O'Brien a little bit. I thought he had some decent stuff. Do I think he was a long term fit in the bullpen just in terms of how the Mariners looked at him, Probably not. And we've seen him already add a couple of relievers this offseason. They picked up Caleb Art and traded for Cody Bolton, so spots are getting limited. Riley O'Brien through one big leaginning with the Mariners back in twenty twenty two and that was about it, So they probably don't view him as a long term option. Maybe he'll kind of latch on with the Cardinals and figure it out, But ultimately, yeah, neither of these trades really moved the needle aside from Blake Hunt and Luis Therenz as we currently sit, would probably battle for that backup catcher job as it sits right now. So I will say Blake Hunt put up decent numbers in Triple A this year, and actually the season as a whole was solid. He put up an eight to fifteen ops between Double A and Triple A. Is Triple APS was actually a little higher. It was closer to the eight thirty mark. Actually it was above the eight thirty mark because it's Saturday, eight thirty five, so he can hit a little bit and he's only twenty four. But if it was my world, in my perfect world, I would hope that they would still bring back Tom Murphy and then you have Terenz and Levens or sorry not Levins. Levens got traded, but hunt both in Triple A, or you just let one of them go. Maybe you let lt go and Hunt your Triple A catcher, because I'm a lot more comfortable with Tom Murphy back there than somebody who's never played in the big leagues. 00:06:49 Speaker 1: Canny catch. That's literally the only question I have, because I was gonna say, if the Mariners want a bat in a catcher, I mean they have one already in Louis Urentz. And here we are nitpicking over the backup catcher role. The first week of November, the first week of the offseason, but all I care if Blake Hunt can sit behind the plate and catch the ball and do a good job doing it. I think that's where's That's where I'm at with the backup catcher. 00:07:16 Speaker 2: I don't think his defense is great. I don't think it's terrible. But Joe Doyle tweeted this out today. He said, he's an average framer, He's got an average arm. His blocking can use a little bit of work. So he's probably like a little better than Louise Terrenz behind the plate. 00:07:29 Speaker 1: So he sounds like a backup. 00:07:31 Speaker 2: Yeah, he sounds like a backup. And also, like you said, if the Mariners need a catcher that has a bat, not only do they already have Louise Terrenz. But how hard would it really be to bring Tom Murphy back? His market's not going to be crazy. I know we had a good year this year, but he's injured a lot, he is getting up there in age, and also the Mariners seem to like having him around. Could it really be that hard to bring him back on some two year, eight million dollar deal. I would do that in a heartbeat, to have Tom Murphy be the second catcher here. You want to come back that I don't know, but I would hope so too. 00:08:07 Speaker 1: I think priority number one, you're right, in the off season would not priority number one of the total offseason, but for your catcher position, yes, that would be it. That would be your first priority in this offseason. I think that would be an incredibly valuable member. I think it would be best if Luis enz or Blake Hunt did not see the big leagues next year, because you have Tom Murphy backing up, and you know, Tom Murphy is good enough to be probably the best backup in the league and probably could start in half the places in Major League Baseball as a catcher if he stays healthy, of course, which is always the case with Tom Murphy. But it's very well likely that the Mariners want a more reliable backup catcher who's not going to be shelved for two at least two months a season, which has been the case for Tom Murphy's since the pandemic season. He's just hasn't been on the roster, No. 00:08:58 Speaker 2: He haven't. I guess there's still the idea that we threw out there a couple of weeks ago about could they bring in Mitch Garver. The only thing about that is also somebody who's not healthy often, and also somebody who's much like Terrenz, not a very good defender. 00:09:11 Speaker 1: So oh s Mitch garver Rakes, Yes, I think he would. He would all of his crummy catching statistics would go out the window if he puts up a WRC plus of one point thirty. 00:09:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, and terrends outside of what was a good second half in twenty twenty one has not done that, so correct. Okay, before we get to what's the biggest news so far the Mariners offseason, a quick word from our friends over at Pigotcha's Pub eighty five. Pigatcha's Pub eighty five in Kirkland. You need a spot to go have some great food, some great drinks, watch some good games with your friends and family. We'll head over there. It's right off eighty fifth Street, or it's on eighty fifth Street, just east of four oh five. And what do they have. Well, they have some really good parking space, they've got some great food, and that food includes some of the best pizza you'll find in Kirkland. So if you go there and you're looking at your food options, you're trying to decide what to get, you can't go wrong with the pizza, So go over try some of that full drink menu, and if you go from Monday through Friday two to six pm, they've got happy hour specials on drinks too, which include three dollars domestic Beers, four dollars Manni's Blue Moons, four dollars mac and Jack's, four dollars Wells, and four dollar house line. So if you want to have some great food, some great drinks, watch some games with your friends, there's also twenty two TVs in the place. You can head over to Pagatcha's Pub eighty five in Kirkland. Okay, so some news here on Monday. It was coming up with Monday being the deadline for qualifying offers. We knew one way or another we were about to find out what the Mariners were going to do with ta Oscar Hernandez. And we debated this on one of our previous shows about which way would they lean. We had differentiating opinions on this. If you want to call it a victory lap, I guess I can take like a semi little victory lap. But my I mean, how about this, I'd way rather be right saying the Mariners are going to get oh hey, then I'll actually take a victory lap okay for not giving Taoscar Hernandez the qualifying offer, I kind of just shrugged, So they did not give it to him. The Mariners decided they did not want to give Taoscar the offer of a year deal for twenty and a half million dollars on the table. As a result, Hernandaz is going to hit free agency. We'll see where he goes next. I guess there's still a possibility of a reunion in Seattle, but it seems unlikely. How did we get here to this front office in Seattle saying we are not going to give Taoscar the qualifying offer. Well, I'll ask you, are you surprised that this is the result they came to. 00:11:37 Speaker 1: I am surprised. I So if I look at this initially, I'm going to say they thought there was a semi good chance he would take this, which, like, we don't know what Taoskar's market is going to be right now. I don't know if we have a clear picture, especially the season he just came off of. I'm not sure exactly where he wants to play. Does he want to go back to the East Coaster, is the open to go play wherever. The other thing here what makes this, what would make this the most valuable, is if the Mariners extended Taoskar the qualifying offer, he declined it, and then he went and signed for over fifty million dollars based on the Mariners being a revenue sharing recipient opposed to a revenue sharing giving team. They took in money from the revenue sharing pool last season in twenty twenty two, and we're expecting them in twenty twenty three to be in that same group. So if he signs for over fifty million, they get the first round pick. What do you think Taoskar would have gotten fifty million dollars or a qualifying offer attached to him. 00:12:42 Speaker 2: There is a chance, but I think the Mariners viewed ta Oscar Hernandez the same way I viewed him when we talked about him just recently, and I said, I don't think they even want to take the chance of offering him twenty and a half million dollars. I think we know their payroll is limited despite John Stanton having money, and they should absolutely open up the checkbook. But that's a conversation for basically any other time, on any other episode, because we talk about it all the time. I think Jerry to Potto knows that his spending might be limited this winner, and they're trying to invest their resources wisely, and one of those pads may not be Taoscar Hernandez. Because let me ask you this, the Mariner's whole mantra is draft developing trade. Right, Jerry Depoto loves his draft picks. Do you really think that if Jerry thought they had an opportunity to get either a first or second round pick for Teo, they would shy away from that. I think if he thought Taoscar was going to decline the QO, they'd give it to him because then, yes, you get a draft pick. I mean, does that make sense? Is that fair? 00:13:39 Speaker 1: It does? But let me let me refrain my question again. Do you think he would have gotten fifty million dollars on the open market with the qualifying offer, because that's what the real value is. I don't know, Like, if the Mariners were like, we could probably we could probably survive without a second round pick, so we don't want to risk it, Okay, So that would be them thinking we're expecting them to get the we're expecting the free agent market to give less than fifty million dollars to Taskar, which is entirely possible. He could sign a three year deal for like forty five million dollars essentially out somewhere else if you wanted to, But that would only yield the Mariners a comp B pick at the end after the second round. Now, if they thought his market would be over fifty million dollars, then they would offer it to him. Then they'd offer to him and they'd get the first round pick. But a if they thought there was a chance that he could that he would accept it, or they didn't think he was going to get fifty million dollars on the open market. Those are two decent reasons that you would not offer him that, and one of those could entirely be possible along with your your thing that maybe the twenty million dollars is really eating up a lot of that off season budget, and if ta Oscar were to take that, they would throw a real wrench in things. Very real possibility we are with this deal. When we see this, we see this and we see this get into client, it's like okay, well, now like this money needs to go get used and used all of it probably right, twenty million dollars. Probably will you know, pay a little bit more for Blake Snell. But you go out there and use this money to go get other players? Yeah, like right, decision. Absolutely, it frees you up to go sign a top free agent. Yeah, go for it. But you know, we sit here at the end of the twenty twenty three off season and the Mariners end up with what they had in twenty twenty two. Then you and I are sitting here kind of raising our eyebrow at this, and Taskar Hernandez goes and signs a deal worth seventy million dollars, and then we're really wondering what the process, what this with this was? I kind of went all over the place with that. But there's there's a lot of things to think about there. I don't think I'm too heartbroken that they didn't offer it to them. I thought there was some upside there, But overall, what really matters now is what they do now that they have this cleared out, Like, what is next? What do they do? What is on the next on the list? 00:16:04 Speaker 2: Okay, let me try to respond to all those points here. Number one to finally answer your question. I do think there is a chance ta Oscar gets fifty million dollars on the market. I don't think it's enough of a chance where the Mariners said, we are still comfortable giving him the qualifying offer. Again, they talked to Taoskar's agent, of course they do. They're front offices and agents are in talks all the time. I am sure they gauge some idea of where they were leaning. And if they thought, under no circumstance or were taking the qualifying offer, we're hitting free agency, We're going to see what we get out there, they would offered it. Why in the world would the Mariners turn down a high draft pick. Of course they want more draft picks. So I do think there was a chance that the Mariners thought Taoskar would get fifty million in free agency, and he might. I don't think it's enough of a chance where they said one hundred percent, let's give him the QO. Whatever happens happened. I don't think they wanted to give twenty and a half million dollars to a player who strikeout wayed strikeout rate is way over thirty percent, does not walk, didn't have the season they were projecting for them, and put up less than two wins. That's not worth twenty and a half million dollars. So that's number one. Number two to double down on what you said. Oh yeah, they better go take that twenty and a half million and spend it somewhere else because if they don't, Oh, there's gonna be problems. We already talked about. Players are pissed off, fan base is getting antsy, and it is furious already. Some of the fan base is furious already. They better go take that money and use it wisely, not just use it, but use it wisely. Think about it like this, And maybe this is stupid boy math here, but I'm going to try to spin some logic into this. If you take that twenty and a half million dollars and try to use it to Blake Snell, well that's actually you can think about it like this. Maybe we only have to pay Blake Snell five million dollars in addition to our original budget. And maybe this makes no sense because what I'm trying to get at this with my dumb boy Matt stand it, lo okay, my dumb boy Matt being if you were going to give Taoscar the qualifying offer and then you had to go add Blake Snell, that could have been forty five million dollars in payroll. Well, if you go pay Blake Snell, I don't know, twenty six twenty seven million dollars, let's call it twenty seven. That's six and a half additional million dollars in payroll. That's not that much, John Stanton, that's not that much. Then you might have already had to have given to Taoscar in the first place. So take that money and a whole lot more. Go use it, dude, like go sign Marquie free agents and make some big trades with it. Because the one thing that's unacceptable here is to eat that payroll. Because if that's what they do, then I would sit here and say, then, yeah, they should have just given it to ta Ooscar Hernandez. So go spend. 00:18:47 Speaker 1: And it's not even just spending. You're gonna have to add payroll if you trade for notable pieces, because notable pieces cost money. Like in the three to five percent chance world, the Mariner's trade for Juan Soto, that's a price tag of what's what's his final year of arbitration war thirty million dollars. 00:19:04 Speaker 2: It'll be something close. Luis Robert's gonna cost a ton if he's in arbitration. Vladdie would cost a ton if he's in arbitration. All those guys are gonna cost a ton of money. 00:19:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you take on all of that salary if you're trading for them. So it's it's not just the free agents. The free agents are nice. They're a free agent fits out there, but it's everything. And man, this budget better not only be about twenty million dollars, it better knocks. Then then you can't afford any of those overall. Though again not too heartbroken about Taoscar, I'm probably out on resigning him now. I like, if you weren't gonna give him the qualifying offer, and like it would it would have to be like ten million dollars. It would have to be. 00:19:43 Speaker 2: I'm gonna double down on what I said the last time we talked about tayl on the pod, which is I think the only way they'd be open to resigning him, and probably the only the only way I'm open to resigning him is if it starts to get late in the offseason. The Mariners are swung and missed on some free agents they haven't made too many big trades. Ta Oscar still hasn't signed. Then maybe you circle back and say, Okay, what kind of two to three year deal for somewhere between twelve to fifteen million dollars aav can we work out here? If it gets to that point, Yeah, I'd be open to bringing him back, but not right now. Right now there are bigger fish to fry than Taoscar Hernandez for the Mariners. 00:20:23 Speaker 1: Well, best of luck Tao to whatever you find out there on the free agent market. He is not going to accept the qualifying offer. However, somebody who might be available lyle Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a free agent pitcher from Japan twenty five years old. His team just finished up the what are the Orcs Buffaloes? Right? And that's what he played for. Yeah, just finished up the Japan Series, the NPP's version of the World Series. He had a masterful performance in Game six, where he went a complete game insteaded Japan series record with fourteen strikeouts, a one hundred and thirty eight pitch complete game. Yamoda, you won't have to worry about throwing that many pitches in Major League Baseball. Congratulations, you got that all out, all out of the tank there. But he is a free agent. He's gonna get posted here, probably this week. I don't think he's officially posted yet. The team announced they will post him, but he has not officially been posted, and once he is posted, teams in America will have forty five days to sign him. Wild to the Mariners of a chance. 00:21:30 Speaker 2: Oh of course, you think John s EN's not gonna give yeah Momoto two hundred million bucks, I mean, just lock it in. No, I don't. I don't think they have much of a chance. It's a nice idea to dream on, and if it actually happened, would we jump for joy? Yeah, this dude has a chance to be an ace in the big leagues. Do I think this is where the Mariners are gonna invest their resources? Probably not. I will say it's interesting that there were some reports last year that the Mariners were pretty tuned in on Code I Sanga and had some interest in him. So maybe they're some interest in Yamamoto. Do I think that's where Yamamoto wants to play? 00:22:04 Speaker 4: Not? 00:22:04 Speaker 1: Really. 00:22:05 Speaker 2: He has openly talked about he wants to be in a big market, So what does that mean? The Yankees, the Dodgers, the Red Sox, the Cubs, maybe somewhere else. Seeatle's not a big market, so for a lot of different reasons, the odds feel low. Again. I'd be thrilled beyond belief if it somehow happened, but I doubt it. 00:22:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, this feels like a Red Sox or Yankee scenario, or Dodgers or Cubs, all teams that need starting pitching, and all teams with enormous markets, significantly bigger budgets and significantly bigger budgets for starting pitchers. Like we talk all this about Blake Snell, and you and I are all on board to sign Blake Snell. Well, you can get a Blake Snell quality pitcher in Yamamoto. Unproven in Major League Baseball, but the stuff really it looks like it'll work in the big leagues. He's also five years younger than Blake Snell, so you can be comfortable signing him to an eight year deal at least I think the projections are. Eight years is about two hundred million dollars free Yamamoto. So there's just so much more upside for some of these teams to lock in a longer term ace of the future with who's going into the prime of his career right now, instead of Blake Snell, who was going to be pitching into his thirties and could see his stuff tick down as the years go along. 00:23:19 Speaker 2: The difference is Blake Snell openly wants to be in Seattle. Yamamoto wants to be in a big market. So I think the reason we talk about Blake Snell so much is, like we've said, how often do free agents ever want to come to Seattle. It's rare. So when somebody actively wants to be in Seattle, go sign them, and then you can trade some young arms for a bat, where with the Yamamoto it's gonna take a lot more willpower and a lot more effort, probably because I don't think he has a sight set on Seattle. 00:23:50 Speaker 1: Yeah. So the just for reference, the most Japanese players ever signed for coming over was Masahiro Tanaka when he was twenty five back in twenty fourteen, he signed seven for one point fifty five with the Yankees. Yemmode is going to get significantly more than that. I mean, even if you just adjust adjust to that contract for Tanaka for inflation, that's probably more like seven for two hundred at least now, right, that's probably decent math. He'd probably be about seven for two hundred from the Yankees and uh and that is certainly within the budget of all these teams that would sign. I mean the Yankees have signed in back to back off seasons or in the last three off seasons. I forget exact what season did Garrek Cole sign? No, Gary Cole's twenty twenty. 00:24:38 Speaker 2: Right, He's signed after twenty nineteen, so right, Yeah. 00:24:41 Speaker 1: So in the last three seasons for the Yankees, essentially they have paid a top of the lines starting pitcher. It was rodin this past offseason and Garrett Cole in the twenty nineteen twenty twenty off season. They wouldn't be a shock if they do it again. They know they can get guys to Yankee Stadium to go play for them, and they certainly have the budget for it, and they'll add it. But such a such a good profile here Lyle, besides the fact he's five ten, one hundred and seventy six pounds again just twenty five years old. Fastballs in the mid nineties. He also throws a splitter as well, curveball, cutter, sweeper, very easy delivery if you want to go learn a little bit more about him. Arm Layton, who we've had here on this podcast and is one of the hosts of the Just Baseball Show part of this network. He wrote an excellent breakdown of Yamamoto on Just baseball dot Com, which I think you and I both have referenced in our prep But a lot of detail on all five of his pitches, and he's he's really got a lot to offer. He throws a lot of strikes, doesn't walk a whole lot of batters as well. Not the biggest strikeout artists in the world, but that could of course tick up when he comes over here to America in a more strikeout heavy league. 00:25:49 Speaker 2: So he has three plus pitches. Fastball, splitter, curveball are all expected to be plus offerings. And what Arm wrote in his piece is he seems to think that sweeper might get used more here in the big leagues, especially because sweepers are so heavily used nowadays. So we'll see what kind of how he adjusts and operates with his pitch mix once he gets over here. But even getting past his actual arsenal of pitches and the low effort delivery, which is usually a good sign. I mean, the resume he put up in Japan, it's just nuts. Think about what an eighteen year old putting up a two thirty five ERA in Triple A would look like. These days, you never see that anymore ever, Like Felix was in Triple at a super young age, but that's so rare. Well in Japan, which is essentially Triple A competition at eighteen years old, the m Momodo put up a two thirty five ERA for his career in Japan, one seven to two. Yeah you heard that right. His career era in the NPB was one seven to two over six years. And what awards did he rack up? He made five All Star teams, he threw four no hitters, he won three Japanese Triple Crowns on the mound, he won two Salamara Awards, which is Japan's version of the Cion, and he won two MVPs. Yeah, that's what he did in six years in Japan, barely being twenty five years old. 00:27:12 Speaker 1: Like pretty nuts, and scouts grade him as a full I would say, pitching grade above of Kodei Sanga who came over last year for the Mets and code I Singa came over and had a very very good rookie season with the Mets. But this guy is more decorated, higher upside, five years younger than Kodei Senga, who came over and was excellent with the Mets. Speaking of a fit, I think the Mets would also be a fit. We know Uncle Stevie has zero problem pumping up the payroll, and even in a rebuilding year, this would be a fantastic addition for the Mets to go after him and add him to that rotation. 00:27:51 Speaker 2: So we're seeing why Japan won the World Baseball Classic, right. Their rotation of three during that tournament was show, Hey, Yamamoto, and Oh, by the way, maybe this is a lukewarm take, but arguably the best pitcher on that team was neither of those guys in Roki Sasaki. So those were your three guys in that tournament. Yeah, that's you can see why they want it all like, that's. 00:28:16 Speaker 1: Nuts, And Roki Sasaki's got some decisions to make. He could come over early if he wants, like I think he is right now classified as the best pitching prospect in all of baseball, right even though he's still playing in Japan. I think scouts and executives say he is the best prospect they have. He can wait until he's twenty five to come over and go out on the open market, where he would probably fetch arguably more than Yamamoto. Fetched. You could argue with what the kind of stuff he has, or he could come over early like show Hey, uh and get paid international bonus signing pool of international signing pool money like sho Hey did. He's got some decisions ahead of him. 00:28:56 Speaker 2: Which would be a lot less and then you know, for a couple of years until he got to ouritration, he make league minimum. But yeah, if he wants to get to the big leagues early, that might be what he decides. And this dude, Roki Sasaki's twenty one and he is just unreal again. Will he be a better player than show Hey. No, of course not, because show he is also a top five hitter in the world along with being a top five to seven pitcher in the world. But if you were just talking about pure pitcher, like put the two up against one another, I think you can make an argument for Roki Sasaki, which is insane to say when we're talking about comparing somebody to show Hey. On the mound. But you look at what Roki Sasaki's done in Japan at such a young age, what show he was doing in Japan on the mound at that time, didn't hold a candle to Sasaki. I mean this dude, like you said, he's probably the best pitching prospect in all a baseball period right now. And when he gets over here, imagine the money Yamamoto's about to get. I think it's gonna be if he waits till he's twenty five, significantly more than that. 00:29:54 Speaker 1: Let's find some optimism for how the Mariners can sign him. Let me start this isn You say no, actually no, I went back to Yamoto. You're right, okay, So let's find some optimism for how Yamamoto can sign with the Mariners. Will you say, Kukuchi say some good things on our on the Mariner's behalf. 00:30:17 Speaker 2: I doubt it. 00:30:19 Speaker 1: I don't think so either. 00:30:21 Speaker 2: Well, considering he didn't have a lot of success here, they didn't win much here when he was here. The fact they yanked him out of the rotation the final week of twenty twenty one, I don't think that left a good taste in his mouth. I think you might have to ask each Euro for some good words. If you're Yamamoto, I think you might have to ask for I don't know if there's players around the league that have good things to say about the Mariners. The Yamamoto already knows. Maybe them, but. 00:30:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a long list. 00:30:49 Speaker 2: Well, maybe you're gonna have to talk to Eachiro and hope he can sales pitch Yamamoto a little bit here and and otherwise be open to signing in Seattle. That's the other thing. He may not even consider the Mariners, Like that's first and foremost. He has to be open to the idea. 00:31:05 Speaker 1: Now, I think the biggest question is would Jerry give an eight year contract to a pitcher. 00:31:12 Speaker 2: That's twenty five. Maybe there's a better chance because he gave Robbie Ray a five year contract when he was older. He gave a Louis Castillo a five year contract being older. If they signed Blake Snell, he's older, like like closer to thirty twenty five years old. Like, if you're gonna give thirty year olds a five year deal, you could give a twenty five year old an eight year deal. 00:31:31 Speaker 1: Yeah you could, you could so, But in the end, I don't even know if the Mariners are going to get a chance to pitch him at all. I don't, I don't, I don't. I don't think he's even visiting. So sorry started to reign on the parade. We just typed him up so much, and it's like, yeah, well he's not gonna sign here, so just speculation. 00:31:50 Speaker 2: You never know again, like they were linked to code I Singa a little bit last year, So maybe there's a small chance and we're just not expecting it. But I will say this same thing about the international pool of players with Yamamoto here on this episode is as I said about Jung Huli a couple episodes ago, which is if the Mariners are gonna go spend significant coin for an international player, I think they're waiting until next offseason. I tweeted it out today here being Monday, just because I was I was born, and I was I was trying to just get something out into the Twitter verse today and I was just kind of going down to Munataka Murray Kami, Murra Muna taka mura Kami, rabbit hole. There we go on YouTube and on Twitter today and I remember that Home Running hitting the title game of the WBC I was like, man, that dude is unreal. So I'm speaking this in New existence a year in advance. The Mariners are gonna wait, Gino will be gone after twenty twenty four. We don't know what's gonna happen with ty Fran, so they'll have some corner infield spots open and say, oh, yeah, Murakami, we'll go pay him. He can have two hundred million dollars. 00:32:51 Speaker 1: Two hundred yin get more than that. 00:32:54 Speaker 2: Oh, I mean it's possible a position player, do you think he can get more than that? 00:33:01 Speaker 1: Possibly? Yeah, I mean he is like there's where's the hole in his game? 00:33:07 Speaker 2: I don't think he's a great defender. But again, as a hitter, like I don't know that, there might not. 00:33:12 Speaker 1: Be you know, maybe as not a proven commodity, you don't get three hundred million, but you know two hundred I think that's where that one starts. It's he's good. When you play every day, it's that much more valuable. Before we get to our interview with Jack Playhouse and Mark Campanero from Awa Wiffle Ball, let's hear from Betterhelp is something interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals regardless if you have a clinical mental health issue like depression or anxiety, or if you're just a human who lives in this world who's going through a hard time. Therapy can give you the tools to approach your life in a very different way. And that's why I'm excited to tell you about today's sponsor, Betterhelp. Betterhelp's mission is to make therapy more affordable and more accessible, and this is an important mission because finding a therapist can be really hard, especially when you're limited to options in your area. Better Help is a platform that makes finding a therapist easier because it's online, it's remote, and by filling out a few questions, Better help can match you with a professional therapist in as little as a few days. It's easy to sign up and get matched with a therapist. There's a link in or description. It's betterhelp dot com slash Marine Layer Pod. That's better h lp dot com slash Marine Layer Pod. Clicking that link help support this podcast, but also gets you ten percent off your first month of better Help, so you can connect with a therapist and see if it helps you. So if you're struggling, consider online therapy with better Help click the link in the description or visit Betterhelp dot com slash Marine Layer Pod A different kind of interview lyle professional Whiffleball. I was not totally aware professional whiffleball existed, but these guys really do a great job of it. 00:34:53 Speaker 2: So I got to know these guys a little bit over the course of this year because they were out at the ballpark a few times throughout the year doing some content of their own. And there's not that many people like us in these media settings at T Mobile Park. You know, there's there's a lot of beat reporters there, there's radio people, there's the broadcasters, producers, et cetera. And we're some new podcasts with a mini mic walking around talking to players, and you know, they like, we're not that relatable a lot of the time to some of the other media people there. But when these guys were around, I could see what they were doing. I didn't know who they were, naturally, I went up and talked to them, and it led to what's now been a cool friendship with these guys. Because I've you haven't gotten to meet them yet, you will once we record this interview. But Jack and Mark really cool. When I got to talk to him. They said, yeah, we do the AWA wiffleball stuff. And I said, oh, I've seen you guys. Yeah, you guys do all the like professional woffleball stuff. You guys are on it with the you know, you've got a whole field in your backyard, which we'll get to you. You've got like you're all over social media. They're huge on social media. By the way. They've got audio video, like high quality setup. It's like, oh, yeah, you guys, don't just mess around. This is the whole nine yards with professional whiffleball. And it's really become kind of a sensation for these guys. So they've been really cool to get to know this year. They have been really cool to watch from AFAR and see their content. And I hope you guys are kind of I hope you guys are excited to listen to them and hear what they're about, because there's some there's some pretty interesting dudes. 00:36:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, a Pacific Northwest brand out of Edmunds, Washington, right in right in our neck of the woods. So let's learn a little bit more about them. Let's get to our interview with Jack Blayhouse and Mark Campanero. 00:36:34 Speaker 2: All right, we welcome on our friends, Jack Blayhouse and Mark Campanero. They're from Awa Whiffleball. Jack is the founder of it, Marks the VP of Communications. We've gotten to know them out at the ballpark a little bit this year, and now they hop on the pod with us. Their season just wrapped up. I'll kind of start with this, what does an off season in wiffleball even look like? I mean, are you guys taking hacks or what are you guys trying to get as far away from it as possible. 00:36:58 Speaker 4: Let's say, it's funny you bring that up. It's it's relief, you know, another season in the books. And then honestly, my dad's the field manager, so right when the field wraps, he's like, all right, everyone, get off the field. We got tam minus six months to get this field back in shape. So he's been doing a lot of field maintenance. 00:37:15 Speaker 1: Is that a full off season project? 00:37:18 Speaker 4: I mean, I mean people can probably see on the videos the field's never looking, you know, like the MLB fields. But I mean just that's just what happens with the wear and tear. Right now, where my dad's in a war with about eight miles so that's not We're not off to a hot start, per se, but we have seen some grass growth, so that's good. 00:37:38 Speaker 1: So on your off season plans, we got questions about the field and all these other things how you guys started the league. But up first for me, just because it's it's the off season, I feel like now is when your recruitment is really kicking into Geartt and Watson, Trevor May questions. If you go to your website, Trevor May pops up at you as soon as you as soon as you click the website. So we'll ask about that in a second. But there's still is the biggest fish in the pond out there. Have you guys prepared your pitch to show hey yet to join your league? 00:38:07 Speaker 4: I think that that comes down to you guys. You guys got to get the content out there. If he signs with the Mariners, I mean, who knows what happens. We have ties supposed to come out here. I mean we I mean, we don't know who's gonna stay or go on the Mariners. But I mean if he's working out in ken all the time, you know, down to drive line, So maybe you guys. 00:38:29 Speaker 1: Gotta get a contract ready for him. Just what what would a proposal look like? What could you offer him? What do you think Mark? 00:38:37 Speaker 5: You know tough, I don't really know. I mean, I don't even. 00:38:42 Speaker 3: Know if there's a ballpark range for He's just a unicorn. He's just incredible, So I don't even. 00:38:49 Speaker 1: Know for sure. 00:38:50 Speaker 4: Give him the highest paid contract in a w A history. I think right now, twenty five cents is like, I think that's Mark's cap right now. So yeah, we're pushing it without the. 00:39:00 Speaker 5: Season, by the way, not a game. 00:39:01 Speaker 2: So hey, if you guys are from that, you'll be the not lowest offering team in Major League Baseball for his free agency, you guys will be one step above the A's at twenty five. 00:39:12 Speaker 5: Cents, exactly exactly. 00:39:16 Speaker 2: I got to ask you guys, well, now that you brought up Ty France, I know you guys talked to him earlier in the year when you guys were out at the ballpark a little bit. But one of the questions we kind of had for you guys was, you know, you guys have had some pretty cool people out and playing in these games, and you bring up Tie, I was gonna say, like, are there any kind of ideas in the works for how to get some Mariners out to be some celebrities in these games. 00:39:36 Speaker 3: So it's funny you asked that because you know, every time we go out to the ballpark, whenever we're talking to the Mariners, were always asking them like guys, wan, I'll play and actually we get some good responses like these guys are actually down generally. And when we talked to ty France, you know, we we haven't been talking to him a ton lately, but when we were talking with him, He's like, yeah, you know, I'd be more than happy to come play with a with you guys. And you know, they they seemed really excited to just have you know, a couple of guys just playing wiffleball in the league, like talk to them at the park. And for Tie at least, it was kind of like he was, you know, reliving some memories from his childhood. 00:40:13 Speaker 5: So I think they really enjoy it. 00:40:16 Speaker 3: And I can I think I speak for Jack when I say this, would love to have Ty France and honestly anybody from the Mariners come out and play some woffotball with us. But there are some works of trying to potentially bring more Mariners to come play with football in the offseason. So more to come on that, but yeah, we got some things going in the works to try to get more guys to come play. 00:40:38 Speaker 1: So was that tough to initially sell the players like these are all multi millionaires, like play the game for a living. It's like, hey, you want to come come play with a ball in my parents' backyard. You want you want to do that? We got a nice field, I think. 00:40:52 Speaker 4: I mean, it's tough with with MLB players just because their season lines up with ours. So you know, when we're our views are going and like the field's looking good, you know they're obviously playing and they can't come out to a wiffleball field, you know, with a risk injury or anything. But I think what kind of kicked it off and Mark can probably a test is when we got Miles Gaskin who was on the Dolphins and then the Vikings. Was he on now the Rams, but he was he was a legitimate player what back in twenty twenty, especially for my fantasy team, And so I think kind of what happened was once you do the first kind of guy to come out here just to realize we're not you know, crazy, we're just guys having fun in the backyard. I think that's probably the biggest step. And then you know, from there, we got some Seahawks players. We had a celebrity game earlier this year with like all the older Seahawks. I think kind of it's it's the retired players and the people, you know, like Trevor May. Those are the guys who want to play. You know, they're just itching to do some physical activity right after you know, doing professional sports. But the end season, guys like Blake Snell lives like five minutes away from our house. We've been trying to get him out here. Trevor's been trying to get him to come out here, but you know, I think he's got some more important things on his mind right now. 00:42:02 Speaker 2: You know what, Blake's now might have a lot more time on the chance to come out and play wofootball with you guys if he ends up signing here, which you wouldn't think the Mariners would be going after all these pictures, but it seems like they may go after Blake snells. So maybe come summertime, if he's got an off day, you hop out the field. 00:42:18 Speaker 5: I would love it. If the Marriner's got Blake's not, that would be awesome, be great. 00:42:23 Speaker 1: So what's your guys's connection like with Trevor May Where? Where did that start? 00:42:27 Speaker 4: So Trevor May is my cousin in law. Oh so we've been, We've been, you know, I've known Trevor basically my whole life. And it's funny because you know, he's he's always like I don't I don't know how much I should speak on his desire, but it seems like content and video games has always been kind of his passion and so kind of like talking with him over the years, he's he's kind of just been itching just to you know, I love baseball. I just I just want to focus on content now, Like I did that, check the box. Now, let's let's move on to my I don't know if it's his true passion, but I know he's very happy when he's making content, you know. And he's been a huge help to the league and helping out and playing in games. So we'll see how he does next year. 00:43:14 Speaker 2: Just to kind of put a bow on this, on this major league player thing, Cauz and we can come back to Trevor may a little bit later if we want to. But I was gonna say, you've got all these celebrities and all these athletes that have now participated in some of these games, and you talked about trying to get some of these mariners out there. I did just want to throw this out there. You're trying to make elevator pitches to guys. I think it'd be pretty cool to see Matt Brash out there, because people talk about he throws whiffleballs with an actual baseball. Could you imagine that guy throwing an actual wiffleball in your guys' games? Like, is anybody putting a single barrel to any of his pitches? 00:43:44 Speaker 5: Absolutely not Matt Brat. 00:43:46 Speaker 3: I mean I watch Matt Brash pits a real baseball, and I don't even know how some real hitters hit that, Like it's just crazy. I couldn't even imagine facing Matt Brash and whiffleball, So I honestly hope to never face him in wiffleball, make you pretty honest. 00:44:02 Speaker 4: I don't want them to throw a wiffleball and mess up that slider somehow. 00:44:07 Speaker 2: So I want to give people a little bit of background on you guys now, if we're going to dive into how you guys all started, because maybe we have some listeners that don't know that much about you guys and think that we're sitting here talking to you guys that just play woffleball. Maybe we have some people saying, okay, like cool, we play woffleball in our backyard with friends all the time, or we did when we were kids. But for you guys, no, this is a real league. And if you want validity behind that, if you go check out these guys with social media pages. On TikTok, you guys are at nearly nine hundred thousand subscribers, and on YouTube, you guys are way over two hundred thousand. On Instagram you're at about two hundred thousand. And you guys play in an actual league where people show up on a regular basis. You have teams, you have standing, all that the whole nine yards. You broadcast the games. So it's become a whole project and a whole ordeal in itself. But I want to go back to kind of the bare bones of it, which is what made you guys originally decide, okay, we want to start this. 00:45:01 Speaker 4: So I think it's It's funny because we've we've kind of always played wiffle ball together, like the main group of guys, Like it was me, Mark, Peter, Alex, kind of the captains we have now across the teams. We've been playing out since high school. I think our senior skip day we had the whole senior class come out to like a local park. We played wiffleball on Senior Skip Day. So I think it's always we've always played it. And then kind of, you know, everyone started to go their own separate ways, like, hey, we might never you know, play again with the you know, it is what it is, that's what happens when you grow up. And then COVID happened. My job was delayed. It's funny Mark marketing play in the first year of the league. He was, you know, working, where were you you would lab Vancouver washing Vancouver, not even close. 00:45:45 Speaker 3: I wasn't even around the first year, but I was watching everything happen online. I was like, I need to get home, and so I ended up changing jobs and I moved back and yeah, after playing ever since, so much fun, so much fun. 00:46:00 Speaker 1: So the league started in twenty fifteen, though the original iteration of it and then you guys took the next step when you had all this COVID downtime. 00:46:08 Speaker 4: Right, yeah, I think we did. We even I think we even started before that. I'd have to look at like we have like old Facebook pages, old like Twitter. I think our Twitter's the same, so maybe can go all the way back. But it used to be the Edmonds Wiffletball League in high school and then when we graduated in twenty fifteen, that's when we kind of put it off or like we were probably done, and then rebranded I guess in twenty twenty to make a little bit more general rather than just Edmunds. 00:46:36 Speaker 3: So it was it was the EWBL Edmonds from WAD Back in the day, we actually had a decent following, you know, around just the town of Edmunds. I remember we had the Twitter account and everything. We tweet stats from different games and things like that, and a lot of people actually followed it from Edmunds. 00:46:54 Speaker 5: And I remember going. 00:46:55 Speaker 3: Like just walking around the halls in high school and people would ask us all the time, like, hey, how's the woofotball le going? Hey, how's it going? You know, just you know everybody's like can I play? Can I play, and it's it's funny because now that we're older and we're in our mid twenties and everything, we still get those questions all the time, but instead of just from like our friends, we also get it from strangers that we don't really know about. Like we'll just kind of be walking around and people will be like, hey, like you're that with football guy, aren't you or whatever else and they're like. 00:47:21 Speaker 5: Hey, you guys pop up on my feet all the time, like I love you. Guys's content. 00:47:25 Speaker 3: So it's it's pretty crazy how how much it's changed, and it's crazy how far it's grown already, and it's just it's just a blast. 00:47:35 Speaker 5: It's so much fun to be with all these guys. 00:47:38 Speaker 3: And a lot of the guys that we play with are still from high school and so it's just fun to be connected with them now that we're all in our mid twenties. We all also have you know, full time jobs as well, so it's just fun to kind of connect at the end of the day and play with football with everybody. 00:47:52 Speaker 5: It's a good time. 00:47:53 Speaker 1: So it's essentially an excuse to keep the dream alive. Well, you can't have all your adults exactly who's whose idea was it to start broadcasting the games? Like that's a that's a big investment into into everything, just to take it from we're just having fun either at a park or in someone's backyard to you know, we're gonna put multiple cameras, we're gonna we're gonna have announcers, we're gonna have all of this, all this setup. It's not a cheap investment. So when how did that idea spark up? 00:48:24 Speaker 4: So it's it's definitely been an evolution of the league. So like in twenty twenty, I was I was doing the most. I was, you know, I didn't want any help from anyone. I was like, hey, this is how it has to be done. So i'd you know, we'd record the games with cameras and then like after the games are over, I'd literally go through all the footage and record the stats after every game because for some reason, I didn't think like people could do the stats. I don't I don't even know what I was thinking back that. And then after that, you know, for the first year, you know, the views, you know, typical when you start a YouTube channel, the views weren't great, and then it kind of all changed with TikTok short form kind of popping up, and honestly, it was around in twenty twenty. I was a little skeptical, skeptical of TikTok in twenty twenty or short form, and then I kind of just started, you know, posting videos and I think March like twenty twenty one is when we kind of made our first big viral, and it was it was Peter and Alex who we played with football back in high school, and it was it was basically Peter was pitching and it hit Alex his bat twice and then he struck out, and that kind of kicked it off, so that it was a TikTok league for a year. And then in twenty twenty two we started doing live games with just iPhones and then as the kind of the revenue picked up on Facebook, that's when I decided at the beginning of this year to just invest in like a as I'd say, as good as you can get a home backyard production setup to be. That's I invested in that, and that's kind of really helped us kind of grow the game. 00:49:56 Speaker 2: I'd say, it's really interesting that you guys talk about how much you've built up this league through short form content, because this is kind of what we've learned in terms of podcasting, and you know, they're different in a lot of ways, but in some ways it actually is similar because what we've kind of been taught and what we've also learned on our own, is if you're just going to record our long content and then try to post it somewhere, if you post it on YouTube, if you post it on the audio platforms, then just try to tweet out, hey, guys, here's this long link, Like, go ahead and click on it. Maybe your friends will click on it and watch for a few minutes, but it's hard to keep people's attention spans for that long. We're building it up through short form. It's basically the only way to build up a platform these days because you have to keep people interested in a short time period. And for you guys, it sounds like that's how you kind of built up your brand over the last couple of years to the extent that you now have it at Yeah. 00:50:46 Speaker 4: And I mean, just like from an outsider's perspective, like you know, whiffle ball's pretty niche as is, and so it's like if you're scrolling YouTube and you see a you know, a fifteen minute edited game, like that's great, that's that'll probably hit some niche audiences like, oh I withfle ball, let's click on that. But if you you know, like you were saying with TikTok, you know, someone's grandma could see that, you know, and just like, oh this is funny. Let me send this Like someone who just does has no idea what withf ball is? Just those click those small you know, clips, just bringing other people who otherwise would have no idea what with the ball is? 00:51:19 Speaker 2: I've got to ask Jack. I feel bad we keep directing all the questions your way, and I'm going to get a couple from Mark here in a minute. But the field that you guys play on, it's your backyard. It's at your parents' house. So I've got to ask, like, like, especially when this started to escalate, what's the elevator pitch to your parents where you sit them down and say, hey, I want to take over the entire backyard. I want to build a state of the art whiffle ball field. And oh, by the way, there's going to be people coming over every single day that could get up as high as twenty to thirty people that are just hanging out back there on a daily basis, Like, how does that go when you sit them down and say I want to do this? 00:51:55 Speaker 4: Well, it's it's it's funny because I get that question a lot. And my dad, Tom, Mom, Robin. They it's funny because they are the biggest supporters out of anyone I know. Like my dad would just literally the whole offseas. He's like, we need a horning track, we need do this, we do this. So in some sense, you know, we're kind of living out our dream too, but I think we're helping my dad live out his dream. He used to play with them all the time with his brother. He says he had the unhittable pitch was outlawed. We've seen it a couple of times. He's playing a couple of games. But I think they really enjoy just having something going on in their backyard, which otherwise, you know, nothing would be going on back there. So they've been very supportive, and I think that's I mean, that's really the whole reason why we've been able to get this far from their support. Lend us mess around in the backyard twice a. 00:52:45 Speaker 2: Week, okay, And now to turn to you Mark in terms of actually formulating the teams and getting people consistent in terms of playing, how did you guys regulate that, especially when it started in the sense of how did you make sure people were playing and it wasn't the type of thing of oh, I'm not feeling it today, I'm not going to show up, Like, how did you guys actually hold people accountable to keep putting out the type of content you guys were putting out and actually make it a real league? 00:53:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I would say having people show up to games is probably one of our biggest problems. And one of the ways that we kind of combat of that is we have captains on every single one of the teams, and so we have captains create group chats for all the players that are on their teams, and so it's up to the captains really to make sure that their team members come to the games week in and week out, and also informing their team members about the schedules, what time the games start, and all that kind of stuff. So we've really made it be on the captains to really make sure that they have their guys come as opposed to just having you know, Jack or myself like constantly reach out to you know, whoever that's playing that day to be like, hey, are you coming, are you coming? Like instead we just have you know, captains reach out to all their players, and it's easier to have just one captain manage like, you know, four or five guys on a team as opposed to us trying to round up forty fifty people, you know, every week. 00:54:11 Speaker 4: So it all add the views and success has helped, but still to this day, it's for some reason it's very hard for some teams to get a full squad there. Like this year was our best year by far, making sure like everyone's there, but there's been a couple of times where you know, it's just we're just scrambling to get people there. So I know there's a lot of smaller wiffleball leagues out there and that's their number one problem. And it's just it, you know, unless you're you're paying your players, it's you know, it's it's it's just like any other league. You know, it's tough to get people out there. You know. 00:54:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, I have two questions here. First one, I'm going to go back to the field and Jack or Mark you guys can answer this, because I'm sure you guys would have heard heard about this if it actually happened. How do the what do the neighbors think of the of the softball league? 00:54:59 Speaker 4: They're they're very very uh Luckily, we're very lucky to have neighbors. I think the one scary thing was putting in this year we put in you know was that last year? Yeah, so last year we put in the lights. This year we put in the speakers around sound. I was a little worried the lights would be an issue. I think a couple of times because we hooked it up to Alexa. We didn't realize like it was on some nights and and so like a couple of nights it would just be lights on the entire night. And luckily you know about that, but so far, no complaints. Our uncle who takes the photos there, he's on the uh the Woodway town board, so he uh. 00:55:37 Speaker 1: He looks out for us. Yeah, it's good, good, good to have someone out there fighting the fight for you. And then and then how what is your guys is like recruiting process? We talked about all the all the all the celebrities that you guys get in there. How do you guys get you know, us, more of us normal people into your league? What what what is your what is your recruiting process? 00:56:00 Speaker 3: Us like, So a lot of it is just kind of you know, friends of friends at least that's how it really has been for the last few years. I know that we've you know, had some forms recently that we've put out there on our social media and stuff for people to fill out and just say like, hey, you know, here's my name, here's my contact information. 00:56:19 Speaker 5: I really want to play in the league. 00:56:21 Speaker 3: But for the last few years it's really just been friends of friends of ours playing in the league, just kind of keeping it close between all of us. But now that the league's gotten a lot bigger, we're starting to reach out to more of. 00:56:34 Speaker 5: The general public to come in and play. 00:56:35 Speaker 3: And you know, whenever we're able to get somebody that's able to make all the games and if they're a good wifotball player, we'd love to. 00:56:42 Speaker 5: Have you join the league. 00:56:44 Speaker 1: So you guys have a neat teams right now? What is is there a goal for teams? 00:56:50 Speaker 4: So I think right now with eight we're you know, once the I think this might be the last year of eight teams. If the level of town is what it's been coming in. 00:57:01 Speaker 5: There. 00:57:02 Speaker 4: We've got like a lit or a portal online and I think there's probably like a thousand to two thousand names on it. The issue is with that a lot of those names are you know, it's it's a national audience. So when you drill down to the people reaching out, like if they know about it and they're close, like they'll just hit up you know, some of the captains and that's the easiest way to get in. 00:57:21 Speaker 1: But you know, no. 00:57:22 Speaker 4: Offense to you know, the thirty five year old from Detroit, Like, realistically, you're probably not going to make too many games, Like like you know, they'll they'll they'll give their pitch and they're like, oh well they'll send a video in and be like I'm amazing, Like I won't be able to make every game, but I can probably fly in for two a year. It's like that's great. You may be the shohe Atani of whiffleball, but realistically we want guys that can show up every single time, even if they're not, you know, per se the greatest wiffleball player of all time. 00:57:50 Speaker 2: I will say you guys are creative with your content too, and and not just with the whiffleball stuff, but for example, Jack, like like one of the videos I just scrolled across. When I watch your guys content, maybe you're on a trip of vacation somewhere, but you guys like to get creative with how you kind of engage your audience in whiffleball. And when you were on this said vacation, I assume I remember you walked up to some girl and you said, Hey, do you think you can get a hit off me and whiffleball? And she's like, I mean, I don't know, like probably not. She's like, and you go, well, how about this. If you do, I'll give you a thousand bucks. And you had the cash in your hand. You said, but if you don't, I'm shaving one of your eyebrows, like completely off, and she agreed to do it. Which, for example, like there's some leagues out there, I'm sure that this just kind of play the games and have fun with it, which is totally fine, but you guys actually like to kind of not just spread the idea of woofotball, but like you get creative with stuff like that. I mean, for example, like, how do you think of stuff like that on the fly? 00:58:46 Speaker 4: I mean, a lot of it is, you know, kind of kind of the you see it online, you see like, hey, we can do a kind of version of that with whiffle ball. And as you guys probably know that, the seasonality with creating content kind of around baseball is it's doing great during the year and that's kind of what It's easy to make content because we'll just film it and then if something cool happens, we'll post it in the off season, which is when that happened, Like right now, my mind's kind of all over the place trying to hey, how can I, you know, get make a post that'll get some clicks here, because, as you probably know, in the off season, it's it's a little bit slower, So it's nice to kind of switch it up a little bit and make sure the audience doesn't really know necessarily what's coming. So it's kind of fun to just kind of see what works and what doesn't. 00:59:31 Speaker 1: How many creative heads do you guys have to create all this content? Are you? Are you? Do you share the responsibilities? Is it just the two of you? 00:59:40 Speaker 4: So I'll say that there's a lot of ideas and that and kind of all kind of head the creative process and if someone has a good idea, like I'm all for it, and I'm I'm consistently asking, hey, TikTok ideas, TikTok ideas. My brother Brock, who who helps out with the league a lot, he has some ideas and we pursue a lot of those. But for the most part, it's it's kind of just me randomly just sitting just kind of bored at work, and then all of a sudden, I'll just get an idea and just like, hey, can anyone come over shoot a quick TikTok. But yeah, I'm always looking for ideas, So if anyone's got any ideas, let me know. 01:00:17 Speaker 2: I mean, even in your home run derby, for example, like when people got eliminated out of that derby, you guys have that like whiffleball pitching machine back there, and one of the kind of and one of the rules for that was when you get eliminated, you're taking a whiffle ball off the back or whatever, and people had to stand and turn turn their back to the mound and just kind of wear it, which is which is another cool idea that just adds another element of spice to it. I think. 01:00:40 Speaker 3: Let me add that that was not a popular idea. 01:00:45 Speaker 5: We were not happy about that one. 01:00:48 Speaker 3: But as long to get hit generate some views and it's entertaining for viewers, you know, that's what matters. But there were some There was some nasty football hits, some nasty welts. 01:00:59 Speaker 5: A couple of a half from taking the ball, you know. 01:01:02 Speaker 4: That was it that solid plastic ball you get with the Eastern Pro sticks, like the black, the black plastic bat. We usually use that ball, put it in the pitching machine. It was going like one oh five. Mark won the whole thing. He didn't have to get hit, and I think I got eliminated in the first round. So we use like a regular whiffle ball, which is just impossible to aim. And it didn't hit his herd. But the semi finals, like Guy Dominic and Chase Chase, he's on the enforcers, he got a nasty weld on the back of his leg. It was it was funny. 01:01:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, do it for the content, though we've you know, maybe one of one of these days Low and I will have to sacrifice something for the for the sake. Absolutely sad content. Well, I guess we'll have to find out. Maybe we'll maybe we'll throw lound to the Puget sound for that signs I think would do that. 01:01:52 Speaker 2: Can do whatever, like, yeah, I sacrifice a lot. 01:01:55 Speaker 1: I'll jump in there too, that's fine, I clip it. Yeah, okay, last big, last big thing for me. This really piqued my interest. I mean, how many years away are we for fantasy whiffle ball getting to the same level as fantasy football. You guys have Fantasy whiffle ball on your website. I couldn't believe it. I was clicking through it. I even signed up. I made myself an account. I was looking at this one. Yeah, wow, this is something unique. So how are you guys selling that? Like? How many leagues are there out there? 01:02:24 Speaker 4: So I'm trying to remember. I want to say that there's probably like three thousand to five thoud. I can't remember the exact number of people just signed up in it. And I think the first year there's you know, growth with everything, so it was a pretty successful first year for fantasy wiffleball. I think it's funny because we want to implement you know, like kind of putting money on games and stuff, And I know there's a lot of rules and regulations, and it's ironic. We live in Washington State, one of the few states where you can't actually gamble online, so all the players, which makes sense, would not be able to gamble. But stuff like that where there's maybe like a small monetary incentive. This year we gave out like bats for winners and stuff. I think maybe that will continue to kind of encourage people to sign up. But it's an interesting idea that we pursued. And you know, just like with fantasy football, Like you know, like my girlfriend plays, she doesn't know any of the players until she started playing, so that kind of that concept kind of Oh, Mark campaniro hit three zo runs today, let's go like that kind of just kind of builds the players. 01:03:28 Speaker 2: How many people do you guys have playing in fantasy football right now? Like, do you have the numbers for it? 01:03:33 Speaker 4: I'd have to pull it up, but I think in the porl I think we have between I want to say, like four thousand people signed up. I don't know how many of those people are actually signed up for the fantasy or the pick em or whatever. But of those four thousand, you know, maybe half are doing fantasy football. 01:03:53 Speaker 2: That's pretty cool. 01:03:54 Speaker 1: So eventually, when the state allows mobile betting, you guys want to have monetary and center of with this. 01:04:01 Speaker 4: I mean, that'd be cool. I know there's a lot of that could probably lead to a lot of issues we don't see at the moment, you know, Like I don't know, but yeah, how are. 01:04:10 Speaker 2: People gonna how are people going to keep you guys in check for not throwing games exactly? 01:04:16 Speaker 4: You know, I don't. I don't think anyone's throwing games yet. I mean, are one team this year, the wolf Pack. They were two and twenty five, so there might be some questions surrounding them, but we. 01:04:25 Speaker 5: Didn't have a win in the postseason though. 01:04:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got two more big questions for the both of you guys. First is if we're gonna circle back to not just Trevor May, but also Kwame from Love Is Blind? Who is another guy that for your guys' social media pages, is going to play in the league next year? I'll throw this one to you, Mark, but are these guys gonna be playing in every game? In terms of Trevor May and Kwame? 01:04:49 Speaker 3: Trevor May is going to be playing in I think majority of the games this season. 01:04:55 Speaker 5: Kwame, Jack, I'm gonna have to give you that one. I'm not sure how what he's going to be doing this year. 01:05:01 Speaker 4: So, I mean, Trevor's very excited about it. He texts me all the time about it. So I'm I would be surprised if he didn't show up to every game. I mean, it's a game every two weeks, so it's not nothing crazy for a you know, retired imobi guy. Sure what else you got going on? Just kidding, but Kwame, you know, we'll see he's he used to play on my brother's soccer team, so that's our connection there, and they were really good friends, and so he's been texting about it all the time. I don't know, you know, when you got five hundred thousand followers, you know, he's probably trying to, you know, pursue some monetary stuff. But if we get him there for at least two games, that'll be a I think that'll be good. 01:05:41 Speaker 2: Oh, Bank all the content you can with that, I mean, you won't just be reaching the sports circle with that, You're going to be reaching the pop culture like drama TV circle of TikTok too, Like you're gonna get into a whole nother verse. The last question I had for you guys is, ever in a million years when you guys started this, did you think you would be featured on ESPN, Because Jack, you did an interview with Marty Smith on ESPN when they had their ESPN the OCHO Day, which, for those who don't know what that is, it's a spin off that they put into real life from the movie Dodgeball from Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller, where when those dodgeball games were played in the movie, it was called ESPN the Oho and they joked that that's the channel it was on. Well, they kind of turned it into a real life thing and they put some obscure unique sports on ESPN for a day, and you guys were on there playing your All Star games. So kind of long question here rounded out like, did you guys ever in a million years think, oh, this is going to turn into that? 01:06:37 Speaker 4: No, it was. It was crazy. I mean it was crazy. It was an awesome trip. We didn't do it this year. We did it last year. You know, we might do it next year. But the whole first take thing that was kind of like we just finished we were gonna we were trying to film our home run derby and then all of a sudden, these guys show up interrupting our home run derby very rudely. It was Marty Smith and what's his name, Ryan McGee, and so they're like, hey, we're gonna do a live first take view and you want to throw some pitches to Marty, and of course we had to say yeah. So it was you know, the best things that this football league has brought are just been the most random surprises. So like, never a million years we thought that would happen, and that was that wasn't on the agenda, that wasn't on the planet. Just random stuff like that happens. 01:07:19 Speaker 3: I can honestly say, you know, for I didn't actually get to play in that ESPN game. 01:07:25 Speaker 5: I was announcing ESPN game. 01:07:27 Speaker 3: I was on Color and it's always been my dream to announce on ESPN. So you know, this league makes streams come true. So I was just overall one of the most fun trips I've ever had in my entire life. We got to go with so many guys from the league and just go down to South Carolina play on ESPN, and it was just an absolute blast. And I really hope we get to go back and do it again. 01:07:50 Speaker 5: It was so fun. 01:07:52 Speaker 2: It's two people who have a broadcast background. I think I'm I mean apples and I mean it's it's picking the I mean, it's picking between two great scenarios. But I think I'm a little more jealous of you Mark that you were actually announcing on ESPN and broadcasting on ESPN. Not the playing isn't cool, but yeah, to sit next to the play by play guy and actually get to be a part of that, I think that's sick. 01:08:13 Speaker 3: It was so cool, and it's also kind of crazy to you because you understand like how it all works, and like I had like four different screens I was looking at, and I had a producer in my year telling me like, Hey, we're cutting to commercial. Hey we're coming back for commercial. Hey we're rolling this clip. It was so cool just how how everything works behind the scenes. Just getting to see that it was really awesome. But it's like I haven't left because this season, with all of the new production stuff that we had in Awa this year, it's like I was right back doing what we're doing on ESPN. I have multiple screens up in the booth, we have a producer inside who's talking in my ear telling me about Hey, I'm putting hey talk about this, and so it's been really cool. 01:08:59 Speaker 5: It's like I've been ever since. 01:09:01 Speaker 3: I did that ESPN thing, now I got to do it again this year through AWA. It's like I'm just living a dream doing this kind of stuff. I enjoy I love announcing for AWA, and getting a do it on ESPN was also amazing too, So it's really cool. 01:09:15 Speaker 2: Well, this has certainly been awesome getting to sit here with you guys for the last half hour and kind of talk to you a little bit more about building up the league and how it all started, because it's been interesting to us certainly ever since I met you guys, and even before I met you guys, when I would just see your clips. But this has been a bunch of fun, Jack marketting to sit here and talk to you guys. We really appreciate all the time. And Hey, if you ever need some fill in broadcasters at some point, you can give TJ and I ring. We'd probably be interested for the right price. 01:09:41 Speaker 5: Absolutely absolutely, we. 01:09:46 Speaker 2: Really enjoyed that interview with Jack and Mark over at AWA. Wilfleball. You probably wouldn't think wiffleball leagues are a real thing, but there's very much is. They put a lot of time and effort into it, and there's a reason they've been so successful with it. So we really enjoyed sitting and talking to it today and hopefully you guys got to learn a little bit more about it. So be sure to check out their content too. They're all over They're on all social media platforms, and go give them a follow and a watch. With that, that'll just about wrap up this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast. You guys know the drill. If you want to listen to the full form podcast, if you can do so on Apple, Spotify, Google and Amazon wherever you get your podcasts on the audio side. If you do that, follow us, download the episode, leave us a five star review. Those reviews and downloads really do help us out a bunch. Watch the full video podcast on YouTube, go like comments, subscribe over there, and on social media you can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube shorts at marine Layer Pod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.