Episode 77: Brian Nemhauser (HawkBlogger), Blake Snell Is Begging The Mariners To Sign Him, And Profiling FA 3B Matt Chapman

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number seventy seven of the Marine Layer Podcast. We welcome on Brian Nemhauser, the founder of Hawk Blogger in the Seahawks community. We talked to him about his Mariners fandom, creating the website, and a couple of other things in his career well, also profile free agent third baseman Matt Chapman. 00:00:19 Speaker 2: Before we start the show, you're a reminder that if you're listening to our podcast, make sure to download, follow the show, and leave us a review wherever you get your audio podcasts. Those five star reviews and downloads help us out a bunch, so if you take a few extra seconds to do that, it really does help us out. Watch on YouTube. Two full video side of the podcast is there. You can go like comments, subscribe on YouTube, and follow us on social media on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube shorts at Marine Layer Pod. 00:00:48 Speaker 1: Let's get it rolling and we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball podcast network, recording here on Tuesday, November twenty eighth. And the biggest storyline, it seems like lyle weekend after weekend for the Seattle Mariners is Blake Snell going out on his own and stirring up the pot in the Mariners community. 00:01:22 Speaker 2: Man, have we ever ever seen a free agent want to play for the Mariners this badly? Let alone a blue chip free agent like this. 00:01:30 Speaker 1: He literally told Mike to Rico on NBC on Thursday night for that Seahawks Thanksgiving game, I want to sign in Seattle, he told Mike to Rico. If they're saying it on Sunday Night football in front of a crowd of thirty five million people watching in their homes across the country, then damn they better fucking sign him. 00:01:54 Speaker 2: I'll tell you what, as a fan, I'm itching over here, Sam, when's he gonna sign? And is he gonna sign? Are they gonna get this deal done? As two people who run social media accounts for this podcast, they can drag out a little longer Because I'll tell you what, I don't know much about the algorithms on Instagram or TikTok. They seem to love Blake Snell, and they love him during the off season. 00:02:15 Speaker 1: It's and it's not a slight increase. It is a monumental increase. Whenever we mentioned Blake Snell, so low say Blake Snell a couple more times, just for the algorithm. See Blake Snell. 00:02:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it's maybe if we say Blake Snell three times, kind of like saying Bloody Mary three times, it'll actually happen. Then I'll just sign with the Mariner. So Blake Snell, Blake Snell, Blake Snell. 00:02:36 Speaker 3: There where we go. 00:02:38 Speaker 2: I gotta say, like you said, if he's telling Sunday Night Football to please put this on the air and put pressure on the Mariners, and then he's going around to the student section at the Apple Cup saying, come get me, come get me, almost shades of Earl Thomas, remember when he walked over to the Cowboys locker room all those years ago and said that, Like, that's what it feels like. I have never seen this for the Mariners where it is so clear cut in front of them that this free agent is begging you to sign them. Yet here we sit, here, we sit like I know there's some rumors now this week about Yamamoto, and the Mariners may be tuned in on him and they may be waiting to see what he does. But man, that is a big risk for a guy that I'll put it a five percent chance to sign in Seattle when, like you've talked about, you've got Blake Snell who is just waiting to sign. 00:03:25 Speaker 1: Here, and he took a bit nice picture with friend of the pod, Softy. I wonder what he told soft we I think we were sitting here trying to figure it out of like, was Softy gonna like dig in and be like, so, like, what have they what have they offered you? So I think low. I think we me and you needed text our sources about this and see if we can dig up anything and report exclusively here on the pod. 00:03:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, that is our next step as a podcast, I guess is start getting sources and breaking news and leaking information on here. So yeah, let's let's send Softie at text saying hey, so did you did you give him a hard time or what? Actually? Knowing Softy knowing Softy, the answer to that is, and the question of that is rhetorical, It's yes. 00:04:03 Speaker 1: Did he lay out the contract terms the Mariners have offered? It's like, yeah, the Mariners have only offered me so far three for sixty million dollars and I laughed at them. But I still want to sign here because I really really want to pitch here. I mean has there there is literally well, as as these weeks go by, there has never been anybody in my lifetime that has wanted to play on the Seattle Mariners this much. Nobody, It's not even close. Could you pull the standard baseball player in Major League Baseball. It's like, do you want to play in Seattle? You know what they're saying? 00:04:35 Speaker 2: No? 00:04:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, and lay Snell is out here saying, the worst franchise in baseball, please sign me. 00:04:44 Speaker 2: You know why Robinson Cano sign here all those years ago in twenty fourteen because the Mariners way overpaid the rest of the market. That's why he came here. He wasn't itching to come to Seattle. He wanted his money. Like Blake Snell is saying, not only do I just desperately want to come home and play for the MS, No, I'll take a discount. I'll take a hometown discount to play for the only franchise in baseball to never make the World Series. Yet we still sit here and and dead silent pin drops. There's there's nothing yet. 00:05:12 Speaker 1: I can't wait for the story to come out after this offseason is over that they didn't even offer him a deal that would that would really, I mean that would just for how things have been working right now in terms of on brandness, that would that would certainly work. 00:05:27 Speaker 2: This fan base, especially on social media, has been a ticking time bomb since the off season started, really since the end of season press conference started, and I'd say time is running out and out and out. And if Blake Snell is not a Mariner on the fact that, and assuming on the fact that Otani and Yamamoto sign other places, if on top of that Blake Snell is not a Mariner, that might be what puts the fan base over the top and just has them explode. Because I can tell you what the discourse on social media the day he signs, if it's not here, is gonna be ridiculous. 00:05:59 Speaker 1: The only acceptable reason that Blake Snell does not sign here is if the Mariners signed yeah, Momoto, because then you and I will agree, Okay, a twenty five year old potential ace in your rotation. It like, sorry, Blake, appreciate it, but he gave it. He said yes, So we said that. That's it. That's the only reason that it's acceptable for Blake Snell not to be a Seattle Mariner. In twenty twenty four or. 00:06:23 Speaker 2: If they signed show, Hey, I'll put that there to sure. 00:06:25 Speaker 1: Sure, that's fine. Yes, So the two Japanese superstars, if not Blake Snell should be should be wearing a Mariner's uniform next season. 00:06:34 Speaker 2: He'd better be, man, I'll tell you what. We're just gonna wait for this to go by, because I think people's blood pressures are only rising. I'm just sitting here waiting to see what happens because I'm frankly a little baffled. He's not signed here already. But hopefully things swing in the Mariner's favor because again, if not, man, it's gonna be hell on social media. 00:06:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, we're so, we're guessing the market's gonna heat up here of the next week and half a little bit Winter meetings or next week, right, do you know the exact days one of the exact days of Winter Meetings. 00:07:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it starts this Sunday, I believe, because we've we've been before, A little behind that we've been. 00:07:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, we say we've been. You remember that car ride? 00:07:17 Speaker 2: So T J and I went to the Winter Meetings when we were seniors in college because we were looking to get a job in minor league baseball that year. And now that was before COVID shut everything down and we thought there would still actually be jobs. And when we went, it was a five hour car ride from Tempe to San Diego. And if I'm remembering the dates right, we got there early Sunday morning and it was Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and I believe we left on that Wednesday. Yeah, it was. Yeah, I think it's it's happening this upcoming Sunday. And if it's not this Sunday, it's no, no, no, it is this Sunday, because it's it'll be December third. Yeah, so it's starting up here this Sunday. 00:07:55 Speaker 1: I vividly remember the the overnight car, right. We didn't just drive overnight. I did there from Vehoenix to San Diego just so we didn't have to spend an extra night of hotel money. And I still have the photos saved of my phone of us eating at Denny's at five in the morning, not having barely slept at all. And I don't think anything encapsulates what the grind of minor league baseball or getting into minor league baseball is more than that. 00:08:22 Speaker 2: Right there, nothing else was open check in and the first meetings for the minor League convention, which is what we were going to, was at like eight o'clock. So we said, okay, what's open. There was a Denny's open not that far from the convention center in San Diego where we had to go, and that's what we did. We had to get something to eat and all for that only to get to the winter meetings and learn, oh, these minor league teams really only hire people that are interested in full season jobs because we need somebody in March. It's like, oh, you guys graduate in June or May. Yeah, that's not going to be possible. And again that was before COVID shut everything down too. 00:08:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like I think there was maybe three jobs, three maybe, yeah. 00:09:03 Speaker 2: Only four. TJ to never step foot in minor league baseball. I spent one season in minor league baseball a couple of years after the Winter meetings, and I said, yeah, that might be it for me in the minors. 00:09:13 Speaker 1: I do love excuses to go to San Diego, though, I'm not gonna complain about that. It was fun, the weather was nice, and it was you know, that was the first time we met Ryan Divish and planted the sea to eventually have him on here. Oh. 00:09:27 Speaker 2: The first thing Divish said when we saw him is, Man, I'm so glad it's in San Diego this year other than that dump in Orlando, because now I can actually go out and gas lamp and like drink when all this is over. 00:09:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, and also probably a good thing it's not in Vegas, so I'm not like, I don't stumble into news breaks at four in the morning of lost four grand and I have the type of the story. 00:09:50 Speaker 2: And he was probably exaggerating a little bit with the money thing, but again he was like, yeah, this is probably a good location for it. 00:09:58 Speaker 1: Our beat writer right there, our fuck beat writer. 00:10:02 Speaker 2: Okay, we've got some Matt Chapman stuff to talk about, but before we do that, let's talk about our friends over at Pagotcha's Pub eighty five. Pagatcha's Pub eighty five in Kirkland is the best spot to go in the area if you want to hang out with your friends, watch sports, get some great drinks, and eat some great food. If you head over there, they've got some awesome pizza. Make sure to check it out. There's a full food menu, full drink menu. But we certainly recommend the pizza a bunch and with those drinks. If you're there during the select hours of happy hour, you can get some awesome deals. Those happy hours are Monday through Friday. It's from two to six pm. It features three dollars domestic beers, four dollars, Manny's Blue Moons, four dollars, Mac and Jack's four dollars, Wells four dollar house wines. Go watch some sports with your friends, hang out, eat, drink some great drinks over at Pagatcha's Pub eighty five in Kirkland. Okay, so Matt Chapman only fitting au Hennio Suarez gets traded about a week ago. Naturally sitting here thinking, all right, what are they gonna do now? How are they gonna go replace them? Luisi Arius cannot be your opening day third basement? Where is everybody's mind naturally going, Well, it's going to the top free agent third basement on the market. That would be Matt Chapman, who has been one of the best defenders in baseball for a prolonged period of his career. We know he has some big pop, but it's not as much of a slam dunk as you think. 00:11:27 Speaker 1: I don't want to put it so bluntly, but Matt Chapman is ao Henio Suarez with a higher war. That's what he is. That is his profile, lyle. 00:11:38 Speaker 2: Plain and simple. I don't think this is the guy that the Mariners got rid of au Henio Suarez for it. I just don't. I think the two are two similar, and Chapman's gonna cost way more than au Hennio will. 00:11:49 Speaker 1: The projections for Matt Chapman, Uh are you ready to stomach this six for one fifty? It's like, first of all, I don't think the Meritis would sign most free agents to a six for one fifty, judging how of their spending habits. I certainly don't think Matt Chapman as he is, especially post twenty twenty, is worth six for one fifty, don't get me wrong. Like Matt Chapman when he was twenty five and twenty six years old in the twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen season with the Oakland Athletics, oh my god, I would have given that due to ten year contract instantaneously. We're talking about a strikeout rate that was anywhere from twenty one to twenty three percent. He would walk about ten percent of the time, but he'd also rack up about six war He was a significantly above average offensive player one twenty five plus one WRC plus in both those seasons with platinum glove defense at third checked all the boxes you could have wanted as a star third baseman. The pandemic season happens. He has a couple of injuries. I think he had a hip injury, and then he hasn't stopped striking out since it's been a real issue and it's deteriorated his value a bunch. 00:13:04 Speaker 2: He strikes out more than Gino has at some points. Matt Chapman, Again, I know it was a short season, but we're talking about a guy who in twenty twenty struck out get ready for this thirty five percent of the time, and then the following year, in a full season in twenty twenty one, it was thirty two and a half percent of the time. This guy has just been a strikeout machine left and right at different points of his career. So we can talk about his offense, we can talk about his defense. We're going to get into all of it. But if you just want to start first with this the punch outs, it may start and finish right there. For the Mariners, they may look at his strikeouts and strike out rate and say, yep, that's enough for us to write him off because we just got rid of Gino, we got rid of Teo. We're trying to cut down on strikeouts. That's not the guy we're bringing in to replace. Ay, you Henio Suarez, a guy who strikes out almost as much, if not often more than Gino. 00:13:54 Speaker 1: In theory, you could say, oh, his strikeout slow are trending down. He went from thirty five percent twenty twenty to thirty two and a half percent, a real big decrease in twenty twenty one, in which was his worst offensive season as a pro, and then it went down to twenty seven in twenty twenty two and a tick up to twenty eight in twenty twenty three. I mean, that's not a promising enough trend to sell you on that. If I'm selling you on Matt Chapman, I'm gonna say, overall, net we like to use War. He's a very valuable player. By War, I mean, this dude is worth at least three and a half wins every full season of his big league career sans his rookie season and his rookie season in eighty games use worth two and a half wins. Value value value value. You stick Matt Chapman on the Mariners this past season, he's the third most valuable member of that team. But the problem is so much of it comes from his defense, and the Mariners, as much as they've liked some good defense, need a little bit more of their offense. I will give this to his offense, though lyle He's been pretty consistent offensively in all the full seasons of his career outside of twenty twenty one, which was his worst season with a one on one WRC plus, He's above one ten every season. That's consistency, even though it's not how you would like. He still had a one to ten WRC plus in twenty twenty three. That was pretty much carried by in April where he had a two to sixteen WRC plus, and then outside of that had an eighty four. So it's overall for the season he gave you a one ten, but most of the production was put up in one month. He had a good July as well before he got hurt in August, but a lot was carried by a small sample size, and then over the larger portions of the season was not simply not good enough at the plate. 00:15:40 Speaker 2: So we're diving into his offense. We'll get to his defense here in a couple of minutes. But to your point, in April he was the MVP. He had another great month in July, like you just said, he had a nine hundred ops that month, but again, really really highlighting here April, because April, you could argue through one month he was the MVP of the American League. The other four months of the year he was awful. Hiss sat between five hundred and six hundred, it was somewhere in that range. The other four months of the season, he's super streaky. And the Mariners, I think need a little more consistency than that. We saw what happened when Julio couldn't get it going early in the season. The whole offense lagged as a result. They need a little bit more consistency than that. Because that right there, what Matt Chapman did, that's kind of what ta Oscar Hernandez did. What Chapman did was probably a little bit more elevated, but it was two great months and four months where he really struggled, and I think the Mariners would prefer to steer clear as something like that and have a little bit more consistency on a daily basis. 00:16:36 Speaker 1: So the injuries are a factor here With Matt Chapman. I mentioned the injuries before he got traded to Toronto, which led to his down twenty twenty one season. So this past season in twenty three, he had a finger injury in August, which many think was a big reason for his slump towards the end of the season when he was coming off that great July and like, Okay, he's gonna build on it, but then he hurts his finger and he can never swing the same after that. You can believe that, you can choose not to believe it. And there is a fact that Matt Chapman's not getting any younger and potentially not getting any better on offense, and his swing and miss is not going to get any better on offense. So it's take that as you will. There is that on top of off, on top of his swing and miss offensive profile. 00:17:23 Speaker 2: His profile is fascinating because when you look at his peripherals, I mean, Baseball Savant loves the guy. When you look at his hard hit profile. He squares the ball up as hard as just about anybody in the league. I mean, he barrels the hell out of baseballs. And if you want to dive even deeper on it, when you talk about his savant stuff like hard hit percentage, he was in the one hundredth percentile this past year. Like, he really squares the ball up, but it hasn't really led to on field results. So he has a lot of red on his profile on Savant. But you talked about his WRC plus and you said, oh, well, he's he's consistent, he's usually around one to ten. Well, I'm going to play Devil's advocate. Does it concern you at all that he hasn't put up a one twenty WRC plus or better since the year of twenty twenty, because that doesn't feel like a guy you pay one hundred and fifty million bucks to when you need help on offense. 00:18:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, first price tag. Yes, absolutely. And what's also concerning is his quality of contact. For having the amazing eggs of velocity, barrel percentage, and hard hit rate, his quality of contact is slightly above middling sixty fifth percentile. You would expect that to be in the eightieth or higher with all of those numbers, and whenever you're barreling a baseball, you're hitting it as hard as humanly possible. But the case is his quality of contact is overall by XWOBA, not good or not great. It's sixty fifth percentile is above average. That's where we're going to lay that. But then you look at his batting run value of how Savant tries to measure that, it's below average. It's in the fortieth percentile. For someone who's supposed to have amazing batted ball data. That doesn't make too much sense. 00:19:07 Speaker 2: And he weirdly struggles with fastballs too. Most of his career he has not squared up four seemers, which is a little odd for a guy that hits so many homers. But yeah, there are things to be concerned about in his profile too, and again it hasn't really led to the onfield results you want over the last few years. Because he's been good, I don't think he's been good enough to warrant the contract that him and Scott Boris are gonna be asking for. That's the other part about this, right. Knowing how Scott Boris often manipulates markets, here's what he's gonna do. He's gonna wait till O'TAWNI signs. He's gonna tell Cody Bellinger we're waiting till o'twne signs. Then he'll invest most of his time into Cody. And once Cody signs, who becomes the third best bat on the market. In most eyes, it's Matt Chapman. So then Scott Boris will say, now we get going with you, buddy, and now we're gonna up your price tag to all the desperate teams that are looking for bats. And what are the Mariners not to They don't get in bidding wars, and they don't get in bidding wars for players like him. So I don't think this makes a whole lot of sense for a lot of reasons. Between the offensive profile we've highlighted so far, between Boris being his agent, between the contract he's going to probably demand, there's there's reason to be skeptical. There's reasons to be skeptical. Like, again, if he was gonna get five for ninety, I'd say, great, sign me right up. That's not what he's gonna get. 00:20:20 Speaker 1: He would get five for ninety if he was an average defender. The problem is he's not an average defender. He is an elite defender. That's why his war is so high every single season. So the teams are gonna pay for the fact he plays great defense as well. Even if he's gonna be inconsistent in the lineup, you know that defense is gonna be good. This dude is ninety two defensive runs saved for his career, plus in every single season. He's a monster at third. 00:20:46 Speaker 2: What does it say though, that Gino was ten percent better than him in terms of outs about average this past year, Like Gino was in the ninety seven percentile of OAA and Chapman was eighty seven. 00:20:56 Speaker 1: Defense is so hard to measure because like, how many opportunities a game? To those two? Yet four or five? Can you truly measure? 00:21:03 Speaker 2: Can you truly. 00:21:04 Speaker 1: Measure defense on five opportunities? 00:21:07 Speaker 3: Not really? 00:21:08 Speaker 1: You need six, seven, eight hundred opportunities and you might get that in a season, you might not. 00:21:16 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, defensive metrics are a little bit flawed. I like them because it gives you more ways than it ever has to measure defenders, which is why back in the nineties and early two thousands, people thought Oh, Derek Jeter can make a jump throw. He's a great defender. And then it turns out the numbers come out and it's like, oh, he's actually maybe the worst defender to ever play this game. 00:21:34 Speaker 1: Where I get that in, Okay, respect, you had you had to work that in. 00:21:41 Speaker 2: If you've listened to this podcast long enough. Actually maybe we've never mentioned it. Yeah, I mean, Derek Jeter's defense is not good objectively, Like he had one hundred negative one hundred and sixty two defensive runs safe for his career. Like he was not a good defender. It's not even an argument. Hall of Famer first ballot. He deserved it. Not a good defender, Okay, but with out average, with defensive run saved, even with UZR, it's not perfect, because you're right, you only get so many opportunities. But it does give you some measuring stick to measure defense more than it ever did before. So you're right. It can vary from time to time. And I will say I'm hand picking a little bit here, because what I was going to get to next is when you look at DRS and UZR, Chapman Blue Geno out of the water this year, in those two categories. 00:22:23 Speaker 1: So yeah, and really, what's the difference in like ten percentile points of defense? 00:22:31 Speaker 2: Maybe not that much. And look, Matt Chapman's an incredible defender. I'm not taking anything away from the guy. We know that. Anybody who watches baseball knows that. I'm just pointing one thing out, saying, oh, that's interesting, Just more of the fact that if the Mariners are going to get rid of that guy in Gino and replace him with Chapman, maybe the defense takes a step up? How much though? 00:22:53 Speaker 1: Marginally? Right, pretty marginally, and it would be a very significantly more expensive upgrade. It would have been nine million dollars for Gino this upcoming season if he stayed on the roster. For Matt Chapman, it's going to be twenty e five million according to the projections against six for one point fifty is what MLB trade rumors projected. The Blue Jays did try and extend him somewhere in the ballpark of one hundred million dollars in four to five seasons during the season, and he smartly turned it down because I think he's gonna get way more than that this offseason. I don't think he's a fit for the Mariners. I don't think the Mariners would offer him that contract. He's a plus thirty, and would he even want to sign in Seattle. I'm gonna say probably not. 00:23:40 Speaker 2: I think the money can be better used elsewhere, and I think they can fill the third base position a little bit better. Well, maybe not to the star level that Matt Chapman is, but just in terms of bang for your buck, I'm not sure one hundred and fifty million dollars is worth it. Here's an idea. I had an epiphany about this today. I figured i'd throw it out to you while we're sitting here talking about potential third base I'm not saying this is your number one option. Again, if you could go trade for somebody like Esach Parades, who maybe we'll talk about on Friday, or sign a couple guys that won't cost as much like Jamer. Sure, but here's another idea I kind of had. Would they give Justin Turner a one year deal to play third and then you can use the money in better play like in other places. 00:24:21 Speaker 1: Do you think Justin Turner is enough of an upgrade over what you currently have? This version of Justin. 00:24:27 Speaker 2: Turner not defensively but offensively probably. 00:24:33 Speaker 1: Probably, I mean, yeah, the ideas is fine, would Jerry do it? Do you think. 00:24:39 Speaker 2: If it's like a one year deal, I figure I feel like they might take a chance. And again, if I know, we've joked about it before here on the pod, but if they're serious about trying to go after Moon to Tako Murakami next year, there's your one year stop gap. Maybe you give Turner a two year deal. You could dh a little bit in the final year of that contract, and then you're not hampered down in any way, shape or form from going after Murakami. Thirty six Actually I think he's older than that. He maybe thirty eight now, oh nod. 00:25:06 Speaker 1: Well, if he can hit, then I'd be in for it. But once you get around that age, you you never you never know when that offensive profile is gonna gonna hit the shitter. So that's it has been an option, though, like you just pointed it out, I've seen some other people floated out there as as offensive upgrades at third base. But you wonder about is his offense gonna fall off? As he's going to be durable. Gino was very durable this past season. Is justin Turner going to be durable at age thirty eight. 00:25:39 Speaker 2: You probably have to give him some DH days. Maybe that's when Uria starts playing a little bit of third base. Yeah, he'd probably you'd probably have to get him off his feet a little bit. 00:25:48 Speaker 1: So is there any way we can speed up time for Murakami so we can get him as a free agent? 00:25:52 Speaker 3: Now? 00:25:53 Speaker 1: Amazing, I've been going down the rabbit hole of space time stuff when I when I sit in bed and I scroll on TikTok, and I know you can send If you send a person, for example, to like a black hole, their clock speeds up. Actually I can't, I can't remember which way it is around if the people on Earth. No, I think the people on Earth actually h faster. So we'll leave him alone on Earth. I'll take the rest of us. We go off to a black hole. Eight, we'll go up there for like two seconds, come back down. He'll be twenty five, and he can sign as a free agent. That was very complicated and off topic, but just just a suggestion, I say, to make a better Mariners offseason. 00:26:31 Speaker 2: No, it's not off topic at all. We want we want Murakami. What do he want us to say? Or a year away from it, but we want the guys, so cook up any scenarios you can cook up. Yeah, I have seen some people throw the Justin Turner thing out there. I think I think Luke Arkins threw it out there a couple of times, so I've seen him talk about it. I've seen a couple of other people talk about it. But it is just an idea that if you invest a lot of money and say an outfield there and a DH and then maybe all of a sudden you want to go a little bit of the more cost efective side. That's just another option. I'm not saying bank in some six win season for Justin Turner. Of course that's not gonna happen, but it just might be an idea for a guy who could help the offense a little bit. 00:27:10 Speaker 1: Well, he's unsigned. Later on in this offseason, we can do a deeper dive into Justin Turner, and if the Mariners still have a hole at third base, we can we can investigate. I have a sneaking feeling they might have a hole at third base. Oh, I don't know until opening day. By our standards, I do not like what Daniel Kramer wrote today. By the way, when he when he when he know he mentioned the notion of Luis Sirius as the starting third basement on opening day. 00:27:37 Speaker 2: So I really hope that's not the case. I really really hope that's not the case. 00:27:44 Speaker 1: Well, I guess we're gonna find out. Lyle. Winter meetings are coming up, Jerry, make it happen, Make something happen before we get to Brian Nemhauser. A word 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 you're just a human who lives in this world who's going through a hard time. 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So, if your struggling, consider online therapy with Better Help Help. Click the link in the description or visit betterhelp dot com slash Marine Layer Pod. So we had a wonderful conversation with Brian Emhauser before we recorded this. He is the owner and creator of Hawk Blogger. People know him more in the Seahawks community, but as I stated, while he is a Seattle sports personality, he is a Mariners fan. So it's good to get to explore those factions of his life here on this podcast in sort of a different perspective. 00:29:31 Speaker 2: We've tried to stretch out our types of guests a little bit so far this off season. Like Paul Sylvie, not the world's biggest baseball guy, but still an awesome conversation knows baseball, was happy to talk about baseball and his career. So somebody like him, we may try to mix in a couple other people of that sort throughout the off season too, that are just interesting people to talk to. I thought Brian was the same way. He's a Mariners fan. He certainly is keeping up to date with the team always, but he is a Seattle sports personality and he's an in story. So that's what we like to do on this podcast. If people are interesting and they're good talkers, we like to have them on and talk to them about those things. So that's what we did with Brian, and we really enjoyed it. 00:30:09 Speaker 1: So let's get to that conversation now with Brian Nemhauser. 00:30:16 Speaker 2: All right, we've got Brian Nemhauser on with us, founder of Hawk Blogger, also host of the Real Hawk Talk podcast and a Mariners fan. At that the reason we're having him on the show today. So Brian, we appreciate you coming on. I've got to say after the Geno trade au Hennio Suarez, I should say that Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I really couldn't think of a better way for you to cleanse it all than go into that Seahawks game Thursday night. I mean, what a perfect way to wipe the memories away with with maybe some more upbeat, upbeat memories, am I right? 00:30:47 Speaker 1: Wow? 00:30:48 Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a rough game, rough game on Thursday for the Hawks. And I don't know where you guys are on the ahu Henio trade, but that was not as much of a low point for me as I think a lot of other fans actually was kind of for it, so didn't feel the need to wipe this light clean as much. But the Seahawks did nothing, nothing to help other than to occupy my mind with that negative thoughts. 00:31:14 Speaker 1: I'll say they did probably did distract you more than that. We'll get into your thoughts on the Geno trade here in a second, but you know, the negativity I would say spewing out of that is probably more, especially in your world than I would say the Geno trade in even in like the most negative parts of online Mariners fans. 00:31:33 Speaker 3: You're talking about specifically at the Seahawks losing to the forty nine ers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, I mean that was it was. It was this weird phenomenon that happens in sports a lot, where everybody you talked to Mariner Seahawks fans ahead of that were convinced the Seahawks we're gonna get beaten, and we're most worried about them getting embarrassed. And then when it actually happens, it's like, oh my god, this team is so much worse than I thought. I was like, no, it's pretty much exactly what you thought. It just sucks to watch it. So yeah, you know, it's I don't think any fan likes watching validation that their team is not that good. And I think that's part of why people are so frustrated about the Mariners situation. Is Unlike the Seahawks, where you can basically say there's not other than Devin Witherspoon, there's not a lot of blue chip players and young prospects on that team. For the Mariners, you have what could be the best player in all of baseball on your team who's under club control, and you've got a ball club that's not doing anywhere near enough to take advantage of that. And honestly, I think that's more maddening. 00:32:44 Speaker 2: So here's where we kind of stand on the Suarez trade, and you can give us your two cents, is we understand what they're doing in the sense of they're trying to cut down on strikeouts, they want to get on base more. I think it killed them at points last year between Tao, between Geno, between a couple others. But I think where we have our reservation all of a sudden is are they going to replace it? And then some because we've kind of highlighted on some past podcasts, now we think they've got to get basically three bats now between DH, third base and maybe an outfield bat. So we want to hear your thoughts, but I guess just to kind of tie it all in, we get the idea of cutting down the strikeouts, it's just are they going to actually replace it? 00:33:21 Speaker 3: Well, it's a totally fair question, and I think all skepticism around the Mariners moves, especially when it comes to bats, is absolutely reasonable. I guess the way I look at it is there seem to be a lot of evidence of Geno deteriorating behind it, like as a batter, and his power numbers have declined quite a bit, and there's not a lot of there's not a lot of reason to think they're going to turn around, especially in the ballpark that he's playing in in Seattle, and so he's an excellent defensive third baseman. That's probably the harder part to replace in my mind. But that guy struck out a lot. He was not a guy. I mean, he had a number of clutch hits, but in general, he's not a guy that you could count on to make contact in those situations. Your star player as of now is a high strikeout player and struck out a ton last year, especially in clutch situations. So I just think you got to surround him with more contact hitters, tougher out so that pitchers don't have a chance to really pitch around him the way I think they're able to now. So I guess it's kind of like a poker hand. Anytime you're building a roster, whether it's in any pro sport, do you you know how many of your cards do you keep and how many do you throw back and get new ones? And Gino, for me, is a guy, it was pretty easy to say, I love cheering for you, I love you as a guy. Time to see if we can do better whatever that looks like. I'd rather have the void and have them try to fill it. I think you guys are making a totally fair point that until they've done that, they might have just downgraded, which would be even worse. 00:35:07 Speaker 1: What is on your to do this offseason? Do you have anything specific in mind? I mean outside of show Hey, I think we all collectively won't show unless unless you're on the no train, in which case that's a that's a totally different question. 00:35:19 Speaker 3: I mean, I think the atonic thing for me is the what would piss me off is the marriage didn't make a real effort to sign him, And I think what a real effort to sign him looks like is not necessarily offering the most money, but offering him the most control. So if you offer him comparable money but he can get out of the contract next year and every year after that, I think that's an interesting way to approach it. And I think that that could be something that's appealing to him, where you give the player a ton of opportunity and you're taking a risk that every year you're going to have to earn that he wants to stick with you. I think that's your only leverage point. And then potentially, I don't know how he feels about is it Yamamoto who's coming over the picture. I don't know if they have any relationship. But if there's something where the Mariners feel like they can bring him in and Otani's interested in playing with him, great, you know, so I think they should obviously make a play there. I'm not holding out a lot of hope that anything's gonna happen. And so then it becomes I think you've got to acquire the best players you can and then use that to acquire players, probably through trade. So like, I don't Blake Snell, I know he wants to come play here, but if like adding a picture of some sort I can get behind. If that then means you are more comfortable offloading some of your higher end pitching to get like a better bat from another team, So my priorities, I guess the simple way of saying it is, ultimately it is add as much you know, high quality hitting to this team is possible, and I don't really care how they do it, whether it's I think they're gonna have to spend some money to do it, but it might not be directly spent on the batter. It might be through a trade. 00:37:12 Speaker 1: Are you okay with Blake Snell? Sounded sounded like just a tiny bit of hesitancy. 00:37:17 Speaker 3: So I really like Blake Snell, like the local story, all that kind of stuff. I don't I would be more excited about Yamamoto than I would be about Blake Snell. For sure. I think that Blake Snell has had some ups and downs, and his durability and health wise has been questionable, and he's had some cy Young seasons and then he's had some number three in the rotation kind of you know, sometimes maybe even four, but really at least three. And I feel like they signed Robbie Ray after a cy Young and gave him a bunch of money. I was not. I'm not a Robbie Ray guy. I don't. I'm not a fan of his at all. And I am a little concern they could repeat history and sign like another guy to big money who's not really a top of the rotation player, and then you know, they trade away and a good maybe they trade away like a quality starter that could be top of rotation and get back a mediocre hitter. I'm like, ah, like, I don't know. So that's that's my concern about the Blake Snell piece, where you guys on him. 00:38:26 Speaker 2: So I think Yamamoto would probably be higher on the list than Snell just between age, pure stuff, et cetera. But I think it's also the idea of assuming Yamamoto doesn't choose to sign here, because there have been a lot of reports that he wants to play in a big market. If that's the case, and you sign Blake Snell, who sounds like he would probably take somewhat of a hometown discount to play here, you only need him to be about your three starter, right behind Castillo and Kirby, and then that sets you up to make a trade with one of your young arms to get a bat, and then all of a sudden, you're set up much better. So I think that's kind of where I stand with it. It's not just Snell coming home thing, it's you're positioning yourself to get more bats and not totally sustain the loss of a young pitcher. 00:39:07 Speaker 1: There's also not a laundry list of free agents lining up to come play in Seattle, so when there is an opportunity to sign a potential doesn't have to be every year. But say he signs a five year deal in three of the years he's a blue chip talent, I think you got to take the risk, and you got to do it because if you don't, you're passing on the one I would say obvious free agent opportunity you need to take, where all it takes is writing a check and not and not giving up pieces on your roster. I think they should do it. It doesn't have to be above Yeomoto. But in terms of what's realistic, he seems like he's already at the negotiating table with his with his offer there, and he's waiting for the Mariners to show up on that side. 00:39:48 Speaker 3: So I feel like it's uh, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. 00:39:53 Speaker 2: I will say, Brian, I love your Otani Yamamoto idea of oh do the two of a connection? Do they play together? Your next is you have to walk down to John Stanton's office and say, hey, can you fork up six hundred million dollars this offseason? Thanks? 00:40:08 Speaker 3: Look, I have no I have no sympathy whatsoever for the Mariners' ownership, and I think that there's been enough. You know, this is probably well worn, so you don't have to go through it unless you want to. But sure, I think an ownership's responsibility is to put the best possible team on the field to win championships. And even if you're a business person and you want to like, you're looking at this as an investment. Fine, but the way that you make money on a sports franchise is when you sell it. And the reason the way you increase the value is by having that sports franchise gain market share and gain traction through winning most of the time. And so this whole concept the Mariners ownership has of essentially running at a strong profitability model every year I think is anesthetical to winning in general. And I think they also saved a ton of money for a couple of years when they were going through the rebuild, so ultimately I don't have any doubt that they would end up making that money back. And the reality is they just might not have the pockets deep enough to you know, go in a deficit to help that happen or not, you know, not having the risk tolerance or whatever it is. And if that's the case, then sell the damn team. Like there's got to be somebody else who actually has the right attitude about what it means to be an owner of a baseball team. 00:41:54 Speaker 2: I will say it is pretty remarkable how different the two ownership groups are on that share the same street, just because look, the Seahawks have been far from perfect over the last five six years, whatever you want to call it. But when you look at the moves they've made, like they are trying, and the trades they've made, they are trying. Like you can argue the optics of the Jamal Adams trade, right of course, but they were trying the Leonard Williams trade. They're trying the Dwayne Brown trade like they're making moves to try to get the team over the top and doing the best that they can. And they made some moves in free agency too, like the Mariners haven't exactly been able to say the same story of we are going and getting blue chip players and trying to win. 00:42:32 Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I mean that was Paul Allen and it wasn't just Pallin for the Seahawks. Palm's first love was basketball, and as a Trailblazers fan, I got to see where there wasn't a salary cap, that this guy was paying the highest luxury tasks of any owner and he didn't care. You know, he signed Scottie Pippen, He does all these things that he wanted to try to get the best basketball team to win a championship. That's what that was what he wanted and where he was able to inject money into the Seahawks to do the same thing he did it. That was practice facilities, that was the vMac that they bought, a new thing that helped with recruiting. It's flying on a charter plane instead of other things. So it doesn't have to always be salary. It's how you run your organization. And you definitely just don't get that impression that the Mariners are run that way? Was it Kevin Mather the guy that had the sun comount in spring training? And that's just kind of confirmed I think what everybody knew about how shitty this ownership group is, and it's a real it stinks. It really stinks to be a fan of a team. For you know, I've been watching the Mariners god like thirty years and you know, since the Phil Bradley days and cheered for them when they've been terrible, and it's just it's really frustrating to have an ownership group that does not value that enough to actually put their best into the team. 00:44:00 Speaker 1: Do you think Paul Allen, if he was given a realistic opportunity to purchase that the Mariners would he have considered it. 00:44:07 Speaker 3: I don't think so. No. I mean, the Seahawks were already a bit of a stretch. He likes he liked football, and so he was open to that, but that was largely a philanthropic thing that he did. Even there, he had to feel like football was a sport that he cared about. Baseball was not a sport for him. So I think you'd have to find somebody else who has a little passion for the game. Mark Cuban just sold the the MAVs. Maybe he's interested in. 00:44:35 Speaker 1: He's got some cash on hand. Yeah, well, Brian has go ahead. 00:44:41 Speaker 2: I was going to say, Brian, before we get into a little bit about you and maybe a little bit of Seahawks stuff, I did want to ask about your fandom as a whole, because I know for a while you were on a little bit of a hiatus, and around twenty twenty one or so you started to get more invested again. So what happened was it just purely you couldn't take any more losing seasons, you know. 00:44:59 Speaker 3: Here's that's the thing. So I think people have a lot of ways that they approach being a fan. I've I've looked at every box score for every game the Mariners played for last thirty years. So I've always been a fan, I've always followed them. I could talk to you about any era, like if you wanted to go in on any of the players over that time, Dustin Actlee and all those those guys. So I knew it was going on. I didn't like what was going on, and I thought the product on the field was unbelievably boring. And it was twenty years essentially of scoring one run a game at best at times, and it was just excruciating to watch the offense for most of those years. And then you know, you got family, and you got jobs, and you got other blogs and other sports, and it's like there's only so much time in the day. So it used to be when I first got out of school that I would not only watch all one hundred and sixty two Mariner games from start to finish and have my day rest on whether or not they won, but I would also play all one hundred and sixty two games on whatever video game of the month, you know, of the year I was playing. I was absolutely obsessed, and it really they just broke me of that by being a really boring brand of baseball for a long time. So I just learned to, you know, invest where there was opportunity reason to invest, and I started liking what I was seeing. Honestly, Ty Frantz was another part. Like I really believed in what Ty could become. And it's really really bummed about what he did last year, but I thought he had edgar light potential as a as a hitter. And so yeah, I like offense. I like I love pitching, but ultimately I want to see a strong offensive team on the field, you know, other than Nelson Cruz and Robinson Cano, Like, there just hasn't been many highlights that people that could really store runs, so that I think that's mostly what happened. I think a lot of people assume that because you're quiet, you're not paying attention. It's just for me more not worth watching three hours of crappy baseball. 00:47:18 Speaker 1: When you were playing in those games, I hope you eventually got to one hundred and sixty two and oh oh almost all the time, no good sales a lot, that's a lot of reps. 00:47:27 Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Thankfully my then girlfriend still agreed to be my wife despite all of the time I spend on stores. 00:47:39 Speaker 1: So, Brian, you've spent a lot of time working in tech in your career. Your day job is working in tech, but you also have this little side hustle called hawk blogger that many in the Seahawk community know of how I mean, and something that is very different from what you do in your day to day work. How did that idea come about? What? 00:48:00 Speaker 3: You know? 00:48:00 Speaker 1: What brought it to the service for you to want to commit all this time to covering the Seahawks independently. 00:48:08 Speaker 3: Yeah, it happened pretty innocently. I went to school, went to college for to be a sports writer initially, and then found out through experience and internships how little you make and how much time it takes. And I was like, nah, not going to do that, And so I got into tech, and tech at the time at least, was full of people that I could have conversations about, you know, intellectual discussions and product discussions and you know New York Times articles and things of that nature. But you bring up sporting events and a lot of eyes would glaze over and had nothing to add. So I didn't have a real outlet. My wife was not big into sports, Most of my friends were in other places, so I would just kind of bring it up with other people. I'd write about it a little bit, and a friend eventually, you know, said hey, you start a blog, and I was like, all right. So I literally just in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, started thinking about domain names and came up with one. It started it and wrote for a few years. Almost nobody read it. I think there's maybe two readers for probably a couple years, and that was fine because at least I had a couple of people to talk about Seahawks with. And then it just kind of took off. I think Twitter was a big part of that. I eventually understood that I didn't really need the money because I had a full time job and felt weird taking advertising dollars, but then realized I didn't have to keep the money, so ended up turning it into a charitable approach and so donated all our money that we've made from it to charity. Got a bunch of great sponsors, and then the Seahawks happened to also take off in similar timeframe, so it got to be a pretty big deal. For a while, I had a podcast I was doing that whole time, and I've added some more people since then to that, and yeah, just been a great, great experience, always a side hustle. Used to be something that nobody knew who I was until people started figuring it out. And you know, over the last probably ten years have kind of been out and about with it, which has been cool. I've met a lot of people around the world through it. 00:50:22 Speaker 2: I will say, Brian, it's two people who went to school for sports journalism and TJ and I. I fully understand why you got out, like we're still in it, but we understand why you got out because those early stages. Yeah, it's brutal. 00:50:35 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, the ROI, as they say, just didn't match up with me. 00:50:42 Speaker 2: Now correct me if I'm wrong on this, because you were talking about the podcast a little bit and how you brought some people on, how you brought more people on. Now correct me if I'm wrong. But early on you were doing stuff with both Mina Kimes and Danny Kelly, right before both those guys both of them got really big. 00:50:56 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean I want to mis represent it. Those those two made their way that was not at all due to me. But you know, I like to think that I can recognize great work when I see it. And Mina was an investigative reporter at the time and had started doing some stuff for ESPN the magazine. But you know, she and I did a number of you know, season previews together. Danny Kelly, who was at Field Goals at the time, I think, brilliant dude, nice guy, you know, had done a lot for that that blog. And I never saw other blogs as competition, you know. I always was looking to meet other people that cared about the Hawks, and so Danny was great in that way. And there's other folks, uh, you know, over the years, I'm facing on on you, but yeah, I've I've had the good fortune to have cross paths with tons of really talented people from all walks through the blog. 00:52:00 Speaker 1: Has that been the most rewarding thing or it is something else or something else been more rewarding in terms of running this. 00:52:07 Speaker 3: I mean, there's there's a lot of pieces of it that's been rewarded, rewarding. One of the first things comes to mind is I love writing, and so it was the difference for me in terms of increasing the quality of my writing and my storytelling. And I really get a lot of pleasure out of that, and I've written about things outside of the Hawks helped me with stuff at work, and I think I've just been able to convey my thoughts a lot more clearly and more compelling fashion because I was writing every day. I think that the charity aspect has been really rewarding and has h makes it feel like it's all for good purpose. And we've created a pretty cool community around it of like like minded good people that that that's been great. I've met friends that are you know, through Twitter primarily, but through other fashions that I would have never otherwise at. Yeah, and then just the experiences, I mean flying on the team plane, you know, getting to know fan like, players, coaches, front office scouts, all sorts of people and knowing what makes them tick and knowing what who they are. That's all been like amazing. 00:53:22 Speaker 1: How'd you get on the team plane? 00:53:24 Speaker 3: I can't tell you that, can I That. 00:53:29 Speaker 2: Was gonna be my follow up too. I was like, you were traveling on the team plane, that's pretty wid. 00:53:33 Speaker 3: The Super Bowl year, I flew to Indianapolis, UH with the team and unfortunately the team didn't win that one, so it's probably my fault. But seeing seeing how they travel. I'm not allowed to talk about it, so I signed an agreement to not talk about it. But but it was it was a pretty cool experience, once in a lifetime kind of thing. 00:53:54 Speaker 2: Well, it's too bad that season ended up so poorly, right that game they watched in Indy. 00:53:59 Speaker 3: I mean, I went to that Super Bowl, had a reader who knew someone in the NFL front office who got us terrific seats and went to the next Super Bowl as well. Wasn't quite as fun, but also a really cool experience. And yeah, that week in New York was probably one of the coolest weeks of any part of my sports life. And the NFC Championship against the forty nine ers was my peak sports experience. Like an unbelievable experience to be there for that game. 00:54:41 Speaker 2: I was at it too, Like, I think my voice was gone by the end. So I was like fifteen at the time, sixteen, but yeah, my voice was gone. 00:54:47 Speaker 3: Unbelievable, unbelievable moment. 00:54:50 Speaker 1: Brian, you had a moment over the past I would say, couple of years that you detailed very well on your LinkedIn that I kind of wanted to bring up and tie into your work with Hawk blogger and I'm curious, so you essentially retired for a year, took some time off to flush out your thoughts of what you really wanted to do, and a lot of this was on your professional life leaving Adobe to going to where you currently are right now. Did anything change in your thought process from that of how you are going to work with Hawk blogger in your life and new ideas you might have come out out of that or something along those lines. 00:55:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a really unexpected turn. I entered the workforce with a very old fashioned idea that I might work for the same company for my whole career. Like, I valued that kind of long term relationship between employer and employee, and I could have done that. So it was definitely my choice to not do that, and that was a bit of a surprise. I also didn't expect to really retire during that time. I was actually going to work at Golf's another passion I had, and I was going to go work for a golf company that built some tech and combined some passions and honestly, like it seemed like the best possible thing. And when I wasn't excited about it, I realized I just needed to take some time off, and I'm glad I did, one hundred percent glad I did. But I'm I'm super old, but I'm not old enough to be retired. None of my friends are retired, and my wife's not retired. My kids are still in school, so there's not It starts to be a little bit less that you can do with yourself in that situation. And I thought about writing books. I thought about, you know, creating other content, not about the Seahawks, not about sports. I think there's a lot around leadership and management and development and some of the stuff I do in the tech world that I feel like I could offer some help on, but as of yet chose not to. A lot of that just felt I don't know. I like working as parts of the team. I grew up playing sports. I like teams, and doing something on my own felt like too isolating, So end of the day, wanted to get back into actually leading teams and hiring and developing people and building great products. So really really excited to do that at the company I'm at. Now. 00:57:21 Speaker 2: That's all really cool, I really think it is. If I had one final question for you, and I feel like this is a good final question before we wrap this up, as somebody who is a recurring guest of this podcast, what are the adrenaline levels like when you were hosting your show with Softy all those years. 00:57:37 Speaker 3: Softy's great. I mean, I'll tell you this. One of the things I've learned that I didn't expect in doing all this is that it's not the players and it's not the coaches that have the big egos. It's the media members. The media members haven't really accomplished like these are. People on this field are doing things that like a percent dial a fraction of percentile the people in the world could do. People in media, for the most part, are not doing things that are that complicated or that hard. They just have had some good fortune and they're you know, professional, and they've done their job well. But so are a lot of people. But a lot of these folks really think they're hot shit, and that's been disappointing. Softy is the perfect counter to that. Softy is exactly who he is. You see him, You see people come up to him in person and just harass him, like end up over and the bunch of people come up to him. He has patience. I've seen him and it's close to my heart. There's disabled fans that come up to him that he is super patient with and generous with and not at all patronizing. He's just he's just a good dude. Like and I've I've learned to really respect he is just who he is. And it's a lot so you know, like it's not for everybody, but I have a lot of respect for how he's kind of kept his feet on the ground throughout it all, or at least he's the same person for everybody, and I think that's not common in the entertainment industry. 00:59:16 Speaker 2: He is one of our favorites. Like, we've had a bunch of amazing guests on and you've been great throughout this whole interview, but we love talking to Softie. If you want a quick, little funny story. We had him on like very early in the season. I said I wasn't all that heartbroken about missing out on a shortstop and he was furious about it, like on the podcasts, he's ripping me and he's screaming at me. And then we had him back on six months later after JP had the season he did, and I was like, so Softie, like I'll just start like this, if you want to throw out an apology, you've got a space to do it. He's like, is this the whole reason you had me on? You had me on just to try to rip me on your podcast, And so, like you said, he is who he is. 00:59:50 Speaker 3: It's great. Well, for what it's worth, I still would side with him. We should decide to short of stop and move JP anyway. 01:00:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, and I kind of took responsibility for I was like, well, you're right. I just wanted to see if I could, if I could get an apology out of you, Softy, but he wouldn't bite on it. 01:00:10 Speaker 3: I don't know where you got. You guys are probably at least I think I see a Blazer's hat on on TJ. So I don't know where you guys are about the game on Friday, but I know Softy certainly will be feeling some kind of way depending on how that game goes. 01:00:23 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I TJ works down in Pallas. 01:00:27 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:00:27 Speaker 1: I was gonna say, his blood pressure is probably going to be through the roof on Friday. 01:00:31 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:00:31 Speaker 1: No, no dog in the fight there for me, but I'm sure he'll enjoy it. This is what they've been working towards. 01:00:37 Speaker 3: I hope so, I hope so it'd be a shame to go undefeated and lose it in the last game. 01:00:42 Speaker 2: Great, Well, this has really been awesome, Brian. We really have enjoyed sitting down with you for the last half hour to get to talk to you a little bit about the Mariners, a little bit about your journey. So this has been a blast and hopefully we can do it again sometime soon. 01:00:54 Speaker 3: Le TJ, it's been great. Appreciate you having me on. 01:00:59 Speaker 2: Hope you enjoyed conversation with Brian Emhauser. He was great to talk to, really interesting guy, Seattle sports personality who does a lot of Seahawks stuff, but as you can tell from the interview, he's certainly a Mariner's guy and he's certainly rooting along just like all the rest of us are. So we enjoyed getting to talk to him. Hopefully it won't be the last time we talked to him, because we thought he was a really great guest. With that, that'll just about wrap up this edition of the Marine Layer podcast. You guys know the drill. You want to listen to the full form podcast, you can do so wherever you get your audio side of the pod. Make sure to follow the show, download our episodes, leave us a five star review if you go. Do that those reviews and downloads they help us out a bunch, and then watch on YouTube too. You can like, comment, subscribe over there. Full video side of the podcast on YouTube, and you can follow us on social media 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.