May 23, 2024 • 37 mins
Dick Fain from the Softy and Dick show to talk about the 2 series between the Yankees and Orioles, Julio getting moved down in the lineup, possible trade targets, and much more.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And welcome back into another edition ofMariners Weekly. It is May twenty third,
twenty twenty four, and I havebrought along a friend that I've been
trying to get on the show fora long time. He is the one.
He's the only voice of your Seattlestore, mister Dick Fane. Dick,
thank you so much for coming onthe show. Yeah, you finally
(00:20):
paid me enough. Yeah right,what got me on? I wish I
had that pull? No, butyeah, I've been, you know,
chatting with you about kind of theMariners season so far. And we're doing
this episode right after the Mariners splittwo out of four against the New York
Yankees and then right before that,obviously going one out of three against the
(00:42):
Baltimore Orioles. A lot would considerthose two teams probably the cream of the
crop in the American League. Soyou get three games out of those two
series. I think I would havetaken that going into those you know,
that stretch. But I'm curious onyour thoughts on you know, how you
viewed that that what is it sixgames stretch? Seven game stretch between the
Yankees and the Oriels. Well,if you just look at it as seven
(01:03):
games and what's your win loss record. I think three and four is probably
about what everybody expected, right.I think, you know, you either
take two of three in Baltimore andlose three of four in New York,
or you do exactly what he didand that's win one in Baltimore and two
in New York. But that's thepositive side that. The negative side of
it is that we played sixty threeinnings of baseball. Yeah we led for
(01:27):
ten of them. Out of sixtythree innings. You were flat out dominated
in those seven games. And ifyou don't come back in that ninth inning
against New York, I think youlook at this stretch totally differently. So
this is like one fluke, fourrun ninth inning comeback that we're looking at
(01:48):
this road trip completely differently. We'relooking at, oh my god, you're
two and five. You got totallydominated. You absolutely cannot even hold a
candle to these best teams in theALA. And that's what the narrative is.
So I think it's kind of upto the Mariner fan, and the
Mariner fans got to decide for themselves, all right, are we just going
to play for being eighty eight andseventy four and winning this god awful division
(02:14):
by a game or two, ordo we really have thoughts that this is
a ninety five win team that hasa chance to compete with the best,
because right now they're not the latterat all. They are the former.
They are the eighty eight win teamthat is going to have to scratch and
claw their way to a division championshipunless they get some serious upgrades. Yeah.
(02:35):
And I think the one game thatyou could say the Mariners did play
well and did outplay their opponent wasthe Brian Wooz start yesterday. But other
than that, every single game waskind of, ah, we don't look
competitive, and then a random comebackin the eight their ninth inning that would
kind of change their only game,that's the only game they led by more
than two innings, more than twoinnings in the game. Yeah, they
led by in seven innings of thatgame. Yeah, the rest of the
(02:58):
road trip, they led by atotal in three innings of the rest of
the road trip. Yeah, that'sthat's quite alarming. I didn't think about
that, honestly, I was justkind of looking at the wins and losses
going into this episode. But yeah, now that you kind of say that
it did feel like Baltimore was atier above us when we played them.
We got one game out of that, thankfully didn't get swept. Yankees.
I think kind of the same story, right, That offense is a wagon.
(03:20):
They it's so fun to wash themticket bats. It's their pitching's pretty
good too. I think it's betterthan a lot of people were expecting it
going into this year. Those arethe probably the two best teams in the
American League, and I could takesome confidence going into that knowing that,
Okay, that's probably the two ofthe best teams you're gonna play all year,
right, and taking three games outof those two series is a huge,
huge win. But we got tolook better doing it going forward.
(03:44):
And you mentioned it in the godawful American League West. Another reason this
narrative isn't as doom and gloom asit is is because Texas is also losing,
so Houston is starting to kind ofcome back though, so they're they're
kind of on the surge. Soyeah, it's it's it's gonna be interesting
to see what they do. Buthow big does this make? This National
Series coming up? You need towin this one. Yeah, these are
(04:04):
the ones you got to take careof and you know, I think soft
you brought up a couple of weeksago in this show that last year's Rangers
championship team only went forty five andfifty against winning baseball teams. So if
you're just under five, barely underfive hundred or at five hundred against the
good teams in baseball and you justmop up on the crap, yeah,
(04:25):
that's going to get you to ninetyplus victories like it did the Rangers last
year. So, yes, Washingtonis one of those few teams. I
mean, there's not a lot ofteams in baseball that are done, but
you know, you look at thethe Rockies are done, the Reds are
done, the Marlins are done.I mean, the Mets and the Nationals
are kind of on the precipice.They've each only won two of their last
ten games, So I mean,you can really kind of put a stamp
(04:46):
on the national season by going inand sweeping them. You know, that
would put him at twenty one andthirty and you're not coming back from that,
especially with the Phillies and the Bravesand that. Though there's good old
friend Jesse Winker. We get tovisit all yeah, right, Yeah,
he's actually having a decent year thisyear. But yeah, that'll be that'll
be a fun one. He's hittingpretty well. Yeah, so we got
three in DC to play against theNationals. I think you need at least
(05:08):
two out of three. A sweepwould make this road trip feel a lot
better. Cool park, by theway, Yeah, in the Nationals park
many times, Okay, many timeswhen I was traveling with the storm anytime.
The anytime I was in DC andthe Nationals were playing, I'd go
over there, sit in the redporch. Nice, you know, very
very cool. Okay, I haven'tbeen there. I have to check it
out some time. But yeah,So what is it about this offense that
(05:29):
makes it look as anemic at times? Most of the time, to be
honest, as it has like isit your stars aren't hitting? Is it
you know, the pieces around themaren't doing their job? Is it the
injuries? Kind of what? Whatis the main point that you're pointing to
that why this offense hasn't been livingup to it? Sex? My number
one point is t Mobile Park.Yeah, because away from Tea Mobile Park,
(05:51):
they're fourteenth and average and thirteenth andops a pretty average offense right average
to above average offense, and sowe're going to continue to see that.
I think they're gonna have no troublehitting in Washington. It's a hitters park.
You're gonna be able to match theball there. And so I think
that the second part of it is, though, you got to get your
veteran guys to start getting some confidenceat the plate. I mean, all
(06:14):
these young guys, you know,for it started with Rojas, and then
it's Dylan Moore and really Luke Raley. I mean it see seems like you
know, Dom can Zone. Seemslike each one of these young guys.
When I say young guys that arenew to the batting order for the Mariners
in the last couple of years,you know, they haven't been bogged down
by the curse that is the Marineroffense. Yea yeah. And all these
(06:39):
guys that have been Mariners a longtime, Ty France, JP Julio,
you know, all these guys arejust like, yeah, we can't hit
especially, this is how it is. And and they've been bogged down,
and and you know, I thinkit's I think it's good we're seeing more
Raley in the top of the order. We're seeing more of these young guys
in the top of the order.I mean, and we'll talk about Julio
(07:00):
being moved down today. I mean, that's that's a little bit of different,
different situation there. But these guyshave just got to get some confidence.
And you got to look at historywhen it comes to Julio, the
guy always hits in June, Julyand August, and so I don't see
any reason not to believe that theguy's gonna hit in June, July,
in August like he always does.I mean, he's got a two year
sample size of just mashing the ballwhen it gets warm out, so hopefully
(07:24):
that will continue in And he's hittingabout as poorly as he did last year
at this time, so he's notthat far off. I mean, he's
further off in the power numbers,but just in the getting on base,
the batting average numbers, they're notall that far up. Yeah, and
let's get into it, Okay,you kind of mentioned that there. Today
kind of marked a significant point Ithink in Julio Rodriguez's outlook on this season.
(07:45):
We've all known that he's not sluggingthis year. He's on pace for
eight home runs. At this point, we're almost to the third point of
the season and he has two homeor a yeah, yeah, so yeah,
he's on his quarter point of theseason, excuse me, and he
has two home runs, so it'sit's going to be interesting to see if
that picks up. But I wantto know your thoughts. He got moved
down to the sixth hole today inthe fourth game of a four game series
(08:07):
against the New York Yankees. Daygame. I don't know how much of
all that goes into it, buthe's still doing his thing in the outfield.
But how concerned are you? Youmentioned that this is kind of just
what he does at the beginning ofthe year, but we haven't seen him
this singles happy, I should say, where you know, he still has
a decently high batting average, tobe honest, but he does not walking.
(08:28):
He's striking out higher than he hasbefore in his whole career, and
he's not slugging. So those threethings kind of really bring down his rest
of this value offensively. How concernedare you at this point that you know
he's not going to be able tohit those heights that maybe we expected him
to make. Well, yeah,I think I think expecting him to have
thirty five home runs this year isprobably out of the REALMA possibility. I
mean, he started too slow,but we have seen him hit like five
(08:52):
bombs in eight days before so andI think that will come. But I
think what we're looking at is moreof a probably a mid tour. He's,
you know, twenty three twenty fourto twenty five home run season kind
of more similar that he had inhis rookie year than what he had last
year with thirty two and one ohthree, just because he started so slow.
But you know, moving him downin the order today, you know,
I would echo Ian sentiments in that. Okay, I don't have a
(09:15):
problem moving him down, but whyyou're putting Mitch Garver ahead of him?
Like, what in the world hasMitch Garver done a in all of his
baseball career that says he's better hitterthan Julio and be this year that says
he's better than Julio. So youknow, moving him down is fine,
But I don't think I moved himdown to six because if you move him
down to six, then you're threateningnot giving him that fifth at bat in
baseball back and you want Julio youwant Julio to come to the plate at
(09:39):
least five times. Yeah, AndI will always be a champion for this.
I think I've mentioned this in thelast three episodes. I still think
he's best at the leadoff spot.Now. I don't know if that's best
for the Mariners at this point intime because of his struggles right now,
but I think if you want yourbest hitter to be in his best frame
of mind, it just seems likehe is at bats or look a lot
different when he's batting lead off,and that's what he was in the majority
(10:01):
of his rookie year. Now,I will say JP has earned that spot
and it if Julio is going yourbest lineup is JP, then Julio.
But I still think Julio's best atbats and best season, to be honest,
was when he was batting leadoff,just getting on base, creating havoc
on the bass pass, stealing somebases for everyone else behind him, and
(10:22):
kind of setting the tone for everyoneelse. It just seems like, I
don't know, we use the wordpressing so much, especially with him,
that he's trying to be the guyto kind of bring everyone home at that
time. And I think yeah,I think he presses less when he's in
that lead spot because his objective,it is, his mindset is I just
got to get on base, exactlyYou get on base, recavoc with my
legs, and I'm fine. Andthat's when you run into home runs exactly
(10:43):
right. You run into home runswhen you're just trying to hit line drives.
And when you're hitting in the fouryou know, three spot, two
spot, three spot, four spot, you're like, I got to jack
something, man, I got tohit the three run home run. And
that's when he gets in trouble.And you know, the numbers would support
what you're saying. And I mean, he's only had eighteen at bats in
the in the number one hole,but he's seven of eighteen with a nine
(11:05):
to forty four ohps. And thenthe two holes he's hitting out, he's
got an ops of under six hundred. So that would jive with what he's
done in the past in the onehole. And so yeah, I would
much rather see him there than seehim six. I would, just for
sure I would too. And like, and it's kind of a tough situation
because, like we mentioned, JP'skind of earned that leadoff spot and you
know, he hasn't really had thefull run in this year because of his
(11:26):
injury, so and he had agreat offensive year last year. So you
want to kind of balance getting thebest, getting the most out of your
best hitter in Julio, but alsokind of putting the right pieces around him
in order for to put together acompetent lineup. So it'll be interesting to
see how Scott's service kind of handlesthat going forward. It's because we you
mentioned his kind of mindset and theapproach at the plate. Kind of comparing
(11:50):
Julio's approach where you know, youcan get really really hot by you know,
slugging a lot, getting running intoa lot of bats or balls,
excuse me, but then comparing thatto someone like Juan Soto who's he never
goes into slump because he always getson base. You know, he's either
walking or you know, he's goingthe other way, or he's pulling two
or three home runs. It justseems like comparing those two really kind of
(12:11):
highlights. At this point in Kulio'scareer, he still has a ceiling that
I think needs to be raised becauseof that approach. I don't know ever
thought it absolutely. I mean youyou look at Stanton, Judge and Soto
this week and Julio and you're like, well, wait a second, isn't
Julio supposed to be a superstar likethose guys. Yeah, And it wasn't
even close. I mean it waslike, you know, it was like
(12:33):
you have a good NBA player andthey go up against Joker and you're like,
oh, wait a second, I'vegot a good NBA player, but
I don't have an elite NBA.Once you see the opposite side, once
you see the other side of it, like, this guy ain't elite.
So that's that's frustrating, and youknow he needs some help. I think
bringing a guy in from the outsidethat could legitimately take some pressure off him,
(12:56):
I think would would help him loads. Okay, so let's get into
that. But what kind of namesare you looking at? I know there's
a lot of talk. Mariners arestill record wise, in a great position
top the American League West. They'rein a good spot in order to go
forward and possibly add to this teamcome trade deadline or even sooner. What
positions or names are you looking atto kind of help this line up a
(13:16):
little bit? Well, I thinkthe names that have been tossed around.
Is you know Robert from the WhiteSox and Guerrero from the Blue Jays,
and you know Pete Alonzo. Imean, I'm I'm a guy who those
are those are right handed hitters.I'm a guy that kind of likes to
lean towards the left handed bat atTea Mobile Park. I don't think it's
necessarily with you, it's not necessarilya deal breaker that they're right handed.
(13:39):
But you know what, a doyou more lefties in this lineup? Yes,
we do need more lefties in thislineup. So I mean with Robert,
it's like, Okay, what's what'sthe situation right what's the injury situation
with him? He's playing down thein the Arizona League right now, and
perhaps yeah, yeah, And soI mean maybe would you be able to
get him for a song because ofthat? Because his value is so low,
(14:00):
But you know, he'd be thetype of guy that I'd love to
see, but I would I'd liketo see a left handed hit or come
in and if you could get twobats, like if you could get a
bat that can play the outfield andalso a bat that can be a first
base slash d H I think thatwould be that would be ideal. Okay,
so how do you balance that needwith I think another thing that Mariners
(14:22):
fans are kind of going about rightnow is how short the bullpen is at
the moment. You need a bullpenarm, I think because you're not gonna
be able to use andres munos everysingle night. Yeah, I think you
can get a bullpen arm without givingup too much. I mean, they
got a you know, they gota veteran there yesterday. You know,
he didn't look very good today whenhe came in, but whatever, standing
in the head, Yeah, that'sfine. The game was kind of game
(14:45):
was kind of over when he camein. But they're gonna have They're gonna
have to bring in another hard thrower. Those to me, that's the least
of my worries, just because justbecause Jerry to Poto, you know,
say what you want about to Poto, everything he touches turns to gold when
it comes to the pitching staff.So, I mean, he is able
to identify arms, he is ableto bring in the right kind of arms,
and they usually come in in fit. I mean, you know,
just rattle off the list of justwho's this guy over the last three years
(15:09):
that have come in and been awesome. Just top ya, Tyler, Right,
I come on, So I thinkyou're gonna be able to find enough
guys that can at least get youthrough. And they have so much calm.
That pen is just it just oozesconfidence. I mean, I think
it's the opposite of the offense.Like the the the offense, the some
of the parts is actually, youknow, greater than what their output is.
(15:33):
The opposite is true for the bullpen. Like the bullpen. You don't
have a ton of talent right nowin a bullpen outside outside of Munyos,
but they're just so confident, like, hey, we're the Marion a bullpen.
We go in and we pitched seventh, eighth, and ninth scoreless sittings.
That's just what we do and itworks. It works for him.
Yeah, And I'd argue a littlebit that a lot of that is because
Munos has been so good, He'sbeen my MVP so far this season,
(15:56):
because he's been mopping up a lotof things just from the rest of the
bullpen. But like you said,I think if you get one or maybe
two more guys in there, thatkind of push everyone down a slot.
In terms of high leverage situations.Then I think that makes it so much
easier to get through the bridge betweenyour your starting pitcher and to Andre's munos
(16:18):
in tight games. So I dothink that's a need. But I'm with
you. I still think offensively ismuch more important. And again, I've
been banging the left handed batter,you know, bell for the last three
years, and Luke Raley kind offeels that a little bit. He's been
playing, you know, probably oneof our best hitters the last two weeks
or so. But I just stillthink you need more. JP coming back
(16:41):
helps obviously as well. Rojas isreally cool down in the last couple of
weeks, so it'll be interesting tosee how, if, and when he
bounces back. But what position youmentioned you wanted a left handed bat,
But what position do you think youwould want if you can only choose one
to upgrade? Would it be corner, outfield, first base or something else?
For you? Probably first base,you know. I just I was
(17:04):
thinking about this today and watching watchingthe game, and I was like,
you know, when I was fortytwo or forty three years old, I
went to the Seahawks combine and wedid the forty yard dash. Oh yeah,
and I think I had like afive three nine or something like that.
And I was like, you knowwhat, I don't think ty Frantz
(17:26):
could run a five to three nine. Yeah, And I'm like, wait
a second, I'm mister radio hackthat never played anything higher than varsity level
sports, right, can run aforty yard dash faster than the Seattle Mariner
first basement at forty two years ofage. Like that's embarrassing. Yeah,
(17:47):
And it's one thing if you're slow, But if you mash a bunch of
home runs, sure, yeah,if you're slugging right, you take that.
Yeah, Like when I was growingup, you had lots of lots
of those guys. Yeah, RobDear's, Poppy Pete and cavilia Is and
the guys that were hitting two twenty, they'd be perfect today, right,
hit two fifteen but hit forty fivehomes, they'd be perfect in this day.
And yeah, who cares if theywere slow. They did one thing
(18:08):
really really well. They hit bombsand they and sometimes they played pretty decent
defense too, exactly. And it'slike France's you know, he didn't really
boot the ball today, but heshould have had it. And it's like
he doesn't do anything special. AndI've been a type France guy. I've
been like, hey, we've gotour guy at first base for the long
(18:29):
term. Look what he did intwenty twenty and twenty twenty one, like
Okay's and it's just it just notonly did it never get any better,
it just continued to get worse.And so I think, yeah, I've
kind of had enough. Really,I've kind of had enough of a lot
of those veteran guys. It's likeFrance and Hanneger. I'm getting to that
point with JP. He looks totallydifferent than play and now I'm gonna give
(18:49):
him a little bit of rope justbecause he was, you know, he
was hurt, and he was actuallyhitting fairly well in the last ten games
before he went down with the injuries. So I'm willing to give JP another
cut couple months to just kind ofto kind of get it going. But
it just seems like you watch theseyoung guys. They can move, Yeah,
Kad Zone can move, Raley canmove, they can run. They
(19:10):
could beat forty two year old mein a forty yard Nash Athleticism. Give
me some athleticism on this baseball team. Would be really refreshing. Yeah,
I'm with you. It's weird becauseI think about the ty France timeline a
little bit, and like you mentioned, had a really good year in the
shortened COVID year twenty twenty, hada good twenty twenty one two. Everyone's
like, Okay, you're starting tokind of see his potential going forward,
(19:32):
had a really good best of hiscareer first half of twenty twenty two,
if you remember he was an AllStar. That was the year he was
an All Star. And then secondhalf of twenty twenty two he really fell
off the map. By the timeit came to playoff time, he was
like one of the last hitters you'dwant to see in that situation. And
then last year he never really recovered, kind of had a lot of bapip
luck that a lot of people werementioning too that a lot of the singles
(19:56):
that were falling in twenty twenty twoweren't falling in twenty twenty four three.
And then in response to that,I think he was kind of reactionary and
people saying that he didn't really havethe pop. Okay, so I'm gonna
go to drive line. I'm gonnawork on pulling the ball more this past
offseason, and I think it's honestlymade him even I don't want to say
worse, because I like the guy. I've been around him a lot.
(20:18):
He's a great team leader, greatguy in that clubhouse. But it changed
his kind of outlook where he wasa put the ball and play guy,
hit it the other way, begood in clutch situations. And now all
he's trying to do is pull upfor home runs, and every once in
a while he does run into one, and like he did it in the
Yankee Series, but it just seemslike that has changed his entire approach and
kind of gotten away from what madehim a good hitter in twenty twenty one
(20:40):
and twenty twenty two. Well youjust look, I mean, look at
the war and the ops since twentytwenty one. I mean, here's the
war four point two three, yeah, point seven negative point two last year
in twenty twenty three year ops eightthirteen yeah, down to seven seventy seven,
down to seven oh three, downto six sixty eight. I mean,
this guy is not He's twenty nineyears of age. Ye. You
(21:03):
rarely do you find a guy thatbrings those numbers back up once they turn
turn thirty. If they're already goingdown in their late twenties, Yeah,
I'm with you. I just Ikind of hate to see it, but
I think I think you need tostart looking forward to that position and upgrading,
and you have. So this isanother angle I want to take with
you. We went against the Orioles, and you know they are the class
(21:26):
of the American League right now.I think there is even a slightly a
tick above New York in terms ofjust how good that team is. Like
New York's pitching slightly better, butthe Orioles lineup is slightly better. You
could go either way. I thinkthat'll be a really good series if that
ends up happening young it's the younglineup versus the older lineup exactly like it,
and I kind of like, I'mstill, to be honest with you
(21:47):
though, if it's ALCS game numbersix, I mean, I'm still gonna
be more afraid of Judge Stanton andso if I'm facing those than Adley Rutchman
and Gunner and those guys. Soas much as I really liked it as
Orioles, I mean I'm worried aboutthe Yankees at Yankee stadium in Game six
against the Orioles and all, yeah, no, I'm with you there.
So I mean we can go intothat at a later time. But the
(22:11):
way those two teams built their teamsis completely different, right, Yeah.
The Orioles have kept all their prospects, kept calling people up and even when
one doesn't work. Jackson Holliday,the number one overall prospect in baseball,
came up and had a historically badstretch of baseball when the two weeks he
was in the majors and they sendhim back down. Everyone else has basically
worked out someone from Jordan Westberg toColton Kowser, and like literally if you
(22:34):
look at the Baseball Savant page fortheir entire lineup, it's read everywhere.
So it's crazy how good all ofthose guys can be. And that's what
I think a lot of mlbgms cin their prospects, like, oh,
you know, if we get ridof them, they're gonna go, you
know, do something at some otherplace. We can just keep them and
call them all up at the sametime and not have to sign a big
(22:55):
free agent. And this is what'sgonna be our team for a long time,
which the Marigers kind of I haveright now. There may be a
year behind that at this point becausethey just had the MLB's record or not
record, But at this point highestpoint most prospects in the pipeline top one
hundred. I don't know how muchyou kind of put stock in that,
but at this point they have sixTyler Locklear, Cole Emerson, Cole Young,
(23:21):
Harry Ford, and I believe there'sa picture in there as well.
But would you rather them look totrade those guys or one of those guys,
maybe two of those guys this AllStar breaks slash trade deadline to go
get an established guy in MLB orkind of wait it out and kind of
go the Orioles path to where youhave all those guys coming up and playing
for your team at some point inthe near future. Well, I think
(23:44):
you develop a farm system for tworeasons, and one of the reasons is
to build your own team up,and the other reason is to produce chips
to build your team up through vatrade because listen, you're not going to
sign a free agent bat to teamMobile Park. No, you're just not
not a big one. Everybody canplay well, they don't spend money,
they don't spend money. Listen,let me just if you're one of those
people to say Mariners just don't spendmoney, all right, let me let
(24:07):
me put you in the shoes ofa major league hitter. Why in the
world would you sign with the SeattleMariners and hit in this park they give
you ten million more every year,maybe at least right because you know you're
going to die there. So Imean, unless you're like a veteran that
says, hey, this is mylast contract, you know, and I
(24:27):
like Seattle, or I have tiesto see Yeah, I've got ties to
Seattle. But I mean it's Idon't buy into Yeah, they're not going
to spend money like the top fiveto ten teams in baseball. Okay,
they're just They're just not. ButI don't think they're going to be cheap
either. If they were going tobe cheap, they wouldn't have resigned Luis
Castillo, they wouldn't have done whatthey did with Julio Rodriguez. I mean,
(24:49):
I think they want to be somewherein that middle ground where they spend
the money on the guys that aretheir core guys. They identify their guys
really not that much different than theSeahawks, right, right. The Seahawks
find their core guys and they givethem money. They don't give everybody money
because you know the teams that giveeverybody money, it's the crap teams in
(25:10):
the NFL. They give everybody moneyand they find themselves in dead cap.
Hell yeah, I'm with you.I think it's a tight, tight balance
between the two because you want tomake sure you give the right people money.
And sometimes we've seen that with theSeahawks Jamal Adams, where you don't
give the right people money. Andthere are situations where especially I think it's
(25:32):
different for the Mariners because of howbad this team has been for so long.
And I get it, I getthe whole argument. Oh, you
know, this front office has notbeen there for the full twenty years of
the drought, right, so theycan't take ownership for all of that.
But they have to understand that thisfan base is has been more patient than
(25:52):
any fan base in any sport,Right, So I think, yeah,
there has to come a time whereyou do take a risk and take that
next step. Yeah, and youknow, trade a couple of those guys,
try and overspend on a couple offree agents to if you know they're
gonna be good. Wan SODA's afree agent after this year. Yeah,
that's all I'm saying, not thathe would come here, but there's you
(26:14):
never know, they have to kindof they owe it to this fan group
because of how bad this team hasbeen. We need to see a team
like the Mariners go all in atsome point, and I just don't want
to have it be kind of thehalf assed kind of like, Okay,
we'll be the ninety win team everysingle year. And I get that's kind
(26:34):
of what the press conference was afterthe year last year. We're just trying
to win fifty four percent of ourgames, and you know, while the
optics of that look terrible, LikeI get, you're trying to build a
perpetual winner right where you're always goingto be in competition, but I think
this fan base deserves more when youget to the opportunity where you feel like
your team is there to take thatnext So I totally agree with your premise.
(26:57):
I would just say they they bringguys in, yeah, that have
pretty good resumes. Yeah, MitchGarver, Polonco, Yeah, you know,
Tayoscar Hernandez. They bring these guysin and they aren't what they were,
right, They aren't what they were. And so if I'm John Stanton,
I'm like, man, I mean, if I'm spending twenty million dollars
(27:19):
just for on a small deal twoyears, twenty million dollars and they come
in and do nothing, I'm reallynervous about going eight years, two hundred
and twenty five million dollars because ifthat guy comes in and does nothing,
we're in deep, deep truck.Definitely like the Chris Bryant contract right exactly,
or Trevor story with the Boston RedSox, although I still think he's
(27:40):
a good baseball players got injured anyways. So with that being said, uh,
there's been a lot of talks thatHarry Ford is likely to be traded
this deadline. Who would you wantto see? You could get a decent
amount for him. He's one ofthe top prospects in baseball. Maybe him
and pitching, maybe Emerson and Hancockwhat like you mentioned Luis Robert earlier.
(28:00):
I think Vlad Junior is unlikely,but he would be probably my first choice
for a guy that you still getanother year out of. Yeah, right,
So I don't know, you don'tjust get a rental out of him.
Another name that I look at,maybe a lower cost would be YONDI
Diaz from the Tampa Bay Rays.Another righty, but he doesn't strike out.
(28:21):
He's very good at putting the ballin play and kind of found his
pop last year. What what namesare you looking at if you wanted to
get rid of one of those guys. I think I'm with you on Vlad
Guerrero because he's just been so consistent. Yeah, I mean his batting average
doesn't move. No, his youknow, his ops doesn't move. He's
(28:41):
just a guy that, you know, I think would be perfect to fit
with Julio. I agree. Ithink they you know, both Dominicans,
they both knew each other for along long time. And I think Julio's
got to kind of wave the flag, right, He's got to be a
part of this. Hey, wegot to bring you guy, We got
to bring you in. I needhelp. We could be good here.
This is what our teams all about. I think. I think the Mariners
are respected around the league as agood baseball team, as a baseball team
(29:03):
on the rise that just needs acouple of pieces. And you know,
if you can get one of thosebig time names to come in and supplement
Julio and take a little of thepressure off of Julio too serious earlier.
I think that's huge. I thinkthat's a huge part of Julio's development too,
is because at such a young age, they are expecting him to be
the guy. So many other ofthese good baseball players had pretty established veterans
(29:26):
with them when they were coming up, and I don't think and one would
argue a good example of that wouldbe Carlos Santana his rookie year, someone
that I don't want to put thelanguage thing in there, but sometimes you
know, if English is your secondlanguage, you have a veteran who's been
there, done that that's well respectedby the way they can kind of translate
with the coaching staffs trying to sayinto something a young baseball player would better
(29:49):
understand. Yeah, And I thinkthat worked out really, really well.
And even last year, to alesser extent, Taoscar Hernandez too, a
veteran who you know, had thetrack record of being a good baseball player,
and Julio kind of, you know, went got hot with him at
the right time. If you lookat August of twenty twenty three, if
Julio wasn't the player of the month. Ty Oscar was literally right behind her
(30:11):
because he was just as hot ashim during the nineteen eleven it was crazy.
Yeah, twenty wins in one monthwas yeah, that's right. Record
Yeah, record in mL or Mariner'shistory. So yeah, I just think
there's no, there's not that playerthis year. He's kind of the guy
and if you look, I've beenaround them, like just personally, he's
kind of trying to step into thatleadership role. That's hard for a twenty
(30:33):
three year old. That's really reallyhard when you have a lot of kind
of I don't want to say veterans, because they're not really baseball veterans,
but older guys and that aren't maybethe same like, oh I'm gonna go
have fun every single day style ofbaseball players. So they need someone that
kind of has that juice to comein, whether it is someone like lad
whether it is you know, aYondi Diaz, whether it's there's lots of
(30:57):
examples, Luis Robert well In.Julio is such a personality that when he's
happy, I think the whole clubhouseis, you know, music's playing,
he's he's laughing, and joking,and I think it lifts everybody else.
And when Julio is struggling, Imean, he's a young kid. He's
going to bring not intentionally, butjust by his vibe. It's going to
(31:17):
bring the clubhouse down a little bit. If Julio is really feeling and he's
feeling the pressure and and so Ithink bringing somebody in to help him not
only just you know, be amentor to him in the clubhouse, but
also to be a bat behind himtoo, is going to be huge for
this baseball team. And it's notlike I don't think they're a long way
away. I mean I really don't. I think records there. Yeah,
I think if you I think ifyou brought in a big time bat like
(31:40):
that, and then a guy likea Carlos Santi right right, a guy
that that come that can come spellyou, d h spell you at first
base, a clubhouse guy, bea clubhouse guy, and then bring in
a big time outfielder, that's allyou'd need to do. And and that
I think that would run away withthe West And I think that would make
you legitimate contender for the ALCS.Okay, I'm with you there. I
(32:04):
think I want to talk about onemore thing before we get into the next
homestand and what your wishes are forthat record to be. But lately the
last two series, again a lotof it's the opponents, but it seems
like the starting pitching, which startedoff so historically good, has come down
a little bit. We saw BryceMiller struggle yesterday. Luis Castillo still good
(32:25):
today, but not elite as goodas he has been the last two or
three weeks. You know, LoganGilbert's not as good as he was at
the start of the year. Howconcerned are you for the starting rotation?
Are they going to bounce back?Is this kind of who they are or
is it going to be somewhere inbetween. Well, I think I'm gonna
go back to what I said aboutthe hitters. You asked me what the
(32:45):
biggest problem with the hitting was,and I said to T Mobile Park,
And if you just look at thepitching staff at T Mobile Park, I
mean, they're right where you wanthim to be. In home games this
year, their era is second witha two point eight. You go on
the road and all of a suddentheir era goes from second down to nineteenth.
(33:07):
They are nineteenth in era they aresixteenth in whip and they are fourteenth
in batting average again, so onceagain it's a they are the seventh or
eighth best pitching staff in baseball.They're probably they're a top five rotation,
but because they get boosted so muchat Tea Mobile Park and they go on
the road and they're like, wow, the ball really carries here. You
(33:29):
know, this is this is notsomething I'm used to, then that that
drags them into mediocrity. So Ithink they are who they are. I
think they'll finish the season with youknow, a top three ERA at home
and a top twelve maybe ERA onthe road, and that's kind of what
they are. Right they're probably thesix or seventh best ERA team in baseball
right now. Now, we expectthem to be better because we thought Brass
(33:49):
would be there and Santos would bethere. We thought that bullpen would be
a little bit better. I mean, I think everybody healthy, they're definitely
a top five ERA team, butyou know, right now they're probably six,
seventh, eight someone in there.Yeah, I'm with you. I
do think that take out the bullpen. If you just think starting pitching,
that we have the best starting pitchingstarting rotation in baseball. I don't think
there's a team in the league thatI would take above the Seattle Mariners.
(34:13):
They're just kind of going through acold stretch again, like you said,
a part of it's being on theroad a little bit more part of its
playing the opponents they've been playing.So I think once kind of that regresses
back to the mean a little bitmore, that'll even itself out. I'm
not concerned. I haven't seen anythinglike glaring that that would concern me.
I think, like I said,Castilla was good today, could have been.
(34:35):
It could have been a lot worseif he didn't make some big pitches.
I think Brian wu coming back reallyreally helps you. He's looked excellent
all three of his starts that he'shad so far, so and two of
them against really good offenses. Sohe's going to add some to that,
which makes that staff even better.So Yeah, I have little to no
concern with the starting rotation. Istill am a little bit concerned about that
(34:55):
bullpen because it really just has beenMuno's lately. It's been doing it.
So Luckily, you haven't been anya lot of close games, and when
you have, you can use him, so it hasn't bit them just yet,
but I want to take a lookat the after the three games at
DCV, both agree that they shouldwin that series, if not sweep.
(35:15):
You got the Astros for three fourexcuse me, four against the Astros at
home and three against the Angels beforeyou head on the road again. Out
of that seven game stretch, howmany games do you expect them to win
and how many are you wanting themto win? Yeah, I think I
expect them to win four, fourto seven. Spect him to win four
(35:37):
and seven, I think, ButI don't necessarily if I think, I'd
sign out a court for four andthree, because five and two is very
doable. Doable against those two baseballteams, I'm not. I mean,
Houston obviously is better than they've shown, but you know they're still probably only
a mid eighties win baseball team.Yeah, so you got to show that
(36:00):
you're better than them, and it'dbe great if you could take three or
four against Houston and then two orthree against an Angels, a team that
you're definitely better than. Yeah.Yeah, I think Angels you should expect
to win the series, if notsweep that The four games against the Astros
is huge for me because they've beensurging lately. Kyle Tucker is in the
MVP conversation. He's been playing justas well. As we talked Aboutjuan Soto
(36:21):
and how good he's been to startthe year, Kyle Tucker's been just as
good. So it's pretty crazy howgood he has been. That offense is
still doing it. They have topto bottom one of the best offenses in
baseball. It's there pitching that hasn'tbeen as good this year, and I
think that's one of the reasons whythey have, you know, fallen off
a little bit. That four gamestretch could be the time to say,
you know what, no, Astros, you're not coming back. Your dynasty's
(36:45):
done. Win three out of fourthere and you can kind of shut the
door on them for at least alittle while. Coming back. Oh yeah,
you win three of four, you'reprobably going to be seven up.
Yeah. You know, if youlose three of four, one or two
exactly a huge difference. It's very, very big difference. And then you
have a legitimate three team race inthe division if you exactly take one out
of those completely agree. So Ithink that's that four game series is gonna
(37:07):
be interesting. It's at T MobilePark. We just talked about home versus
Road. Go pitch, go pitch, Go pitch, go, pitch,
go pitch. Let's make sure weshut those guys out. I do not
want to see any Astros in theplayoffs this year, so that would make
everything looks so much better in termsof just the outlook and how far this
team can go and then go inthe Angels series. All Right, Dick,
I really appreciate you joining with metoday. Good conversation. This has
(37:30):
been Mariner's weekly. We'll get intouch every week after the midweek series,
so that means next week we'll we'llchat with you guys after the Astro series,
so hopefully we'll have some good newsto report on that front. But
the Mariners in the stretch of morethan ten games in a row without an
off days, so they they're gonnabe gonna be continuing to grind here.
(37:51):
So let's let's follow it along withyou guys. I'm Anderson Hurst. That's
Diick Faine. I'll talk to youguys next week on Thursday,
And welcome back into another edition ofMariners Weekly. It is May twenty third,
twenty twenty four, and I havebrought along a friend that I've been
trying to get on the show fora long time. He is the one.
He's the only voice of your Seattlestore, mister Dick Fane. Dick,
thank you so much for coming onthe show. Yeah, you finally
(00:20):
paid me enough. Yeah right,what got me on? I wish I
had that pull? No, butyeah, I've been, you know,
chatting with you about kind of theMariners season so far. And we're doing
this episode right after the Mariners splittwo out of four against the New York
Yankees and then right before that,obviously going one out of three against the
(00:42):
Baltimore Orioles. A lot would considerthose two teams probably the cream of the
crop in the American League. Soyou get three games out of those two
series. I think I would havetaken that going into those you know,
that stretch. But I'm curious onyour thoughts on you know, how you
viewed that that what is it sixgames stretch? Seven game stretch between the
Yankees and the Oriels. Well,if you just look at it as seven
(01:03):
games and what's your win loss record. I think three and four is probably
about what everybody expected, right.I think, you know, you either
take two of three in Baltimore andlose three of four in New York,
or you do exactly what he didand that's win one in Baltimore and two
in New York. But that's thepositive side that. The negative side of
it is that we played sixty threeinnings of baseball. Yeah we led for
(01:27):
ten of them. Out of sixtythree innings. You were flat out dominated
in those seven games. And ifyou don't come back in that ninth inning
against New York, I think youlook at this stretch totally differently. So
this is like one fluke, fourrun ninth inning comeback that we're looking at
(01:48):
this road trip completely differently. We'relooking at, oh my god, you're
two and five. You got totallydominated. You absolutely cannot even hold a
candle to these best teams in theALA. And that's what the narrative is.
So I think it's kind of upto the Mariner fan, and the
Mariner fans got to decide for themselves, all right, are we just going
to play for being eighty eight andseventy four and winning this god awful division
(02:14):
by a game or two, ordo we really have thoughts that this is
a ninety five win team that hasa chance to compete with the best,
because right now they're not the latterat all. They are the former.
They are the eighty eight win teamthat is going to have to scratch and
claw their way to a division championshipunless they get some serious upgrades. Yeah.
(02:35):
And I think the one game thatyou could say the Mariners did play
well and did outplay their opponent wasthe Brian Wooz start yesterday. But other
than that, every single game waskind of, ah, we don't look
competitive, and then a random comebackin the eight their ninth inning that would
kind of change their only game,that's the only game they led by more
than two innings, more than twoinnings in the game. Yeah, they
led by in seven innings of thatgame. Yeah, the rest of the
(02:58):
road trip, they led by atotal in three innings of the rest of
the road trip. Yeah, that'sthat's quite alarming. I didn't think about
that, honestly, I was justkind of looking at the wins and losses
going into this episode. But yeah, now that you kind of say that
it did feel like Baltimore was atier above us when we played them.
We got one game out of that, thankfully didn't get swept. Yankees.
I think kind of the same story, right, That offense is a wagon.
(03:20):
They it's so fun to wash themticket bats. It's their pitching's pretty
good too. I think it's betterthan a lot of people were expecting it
going into this year. Those arethe probably the two best teams in the
American League, and I could takesome confidence going into that knowing that,
Okay, that's probably the two ofthe best teams you're gonna play all year,
right, and taking three games outof those two series is a huge,
huge win. But we got tolook better doing it going forward.
(03:44):
And you mentioned it in the godawful American League West. Another reason this
narrative isn't as doom and gloom asit is is because Texas is also losing,
so Houston is starting to kind ofcome back though, so they're they're
kind of on the surge. Soyeah, it's it's it's gonna be interesting
to see what they do. Buthow big does this make? This National
Series coming up? You need towin this one. Yeah, these are
(04:04):
the ones you got to take careof and you know, I think soft
you brought up a couple of weeksago in this show that last year's Rangers
championship team only went forty five andfifty against winning baseball teams. So if
you're just under five, barely underfive hundred or at five hundred against the
good teams in baseball and you justmop up on the crap, yeah,
(04:25):
that's going to get you to ninetyplus victories like it did the Rangers last
year. So, yes, Washingtonis one of those few teams. I
mean, there's not a lot ofteams in baseball that are done, but
you know, you look at thethe Rockies are done, the Reds are
done, the Marlins are done.I mean, the Mets and the Nationals
are kind of on the precipice.They've each only won two of their last
ten games, So I mean,you can really kind of put a stamp
(04:46):
on the national season by going inand sweeping them. You know, that
would put him at twenty one andthirty and you're not coming back from that,
especially with the Phillies and the Bravesand that. Though there's good old
friend Jesse Winker. We get tovisit all yeah, right, Yeah,
he's actually having a decent year thisyear. But yeah, that'll be that'll
be a fun one. He's hittingpretty well. Yeah, so we got
three in DC to play against theNationals. I think you need at least
(05:08):
two out of three. A sweepwould make this road trip feel a lot
better. Cool park, by theway, Yeah, in the Nationals park
many times, Okay, many timeswhen I was traveling with the storm anytime.
The anytime I was in DC andthe Nationals were playing, I'd go
over there, sit in the redporch. Nice, you know, very
very cool. Okay, I haven'tbeen there. I have to check it
out some time. But yeah,So what is it about this offense that
(05:29):
makes it look as anemic at times? Most of the time, to be
honest, as it has like isit your stars aren't hitting? Is it
you know, the pieces around themaren't doing their job? Is it the
injuries? Kind of what? Whatis the main point that you're pointing to
that why this offense hasn't been livingup to it? Sex? My number
one point is t Mobile Park.Yeah, because away from Tea Mobile Park,
(05:51):
they're fourteenth and average and thirteenth andops a pretty average offense right average
to above average offense, and sowe're going to continue to see that.
I think they're gonna have no troublehitting in Washington. It's a hitters park.
You're gonna be able to match theball there. And so I think
that the second part of it is, though, you got to get your
veteran guys to start getting some confidenceat the plate. I mean, all
(06:14):
these young guys, you know,for it started with Rojas, and then
it's Dylan Moore and really Luke Raley. I mean it see seems like you
know, Dom can Zone. Seemslike each one of these young guys.
When I say young guys that arenew to the batting order for the Mariners
in the last couple of years,you know, they haven't been bogged down
by the curse that is the Marineroffense. Yea yeah. And all these
(06:39):
guys that have been Mariners a longtime, Ty France, JP Julio,
you know, all these guys arejust like, yeah, we can't hit
especially, this is how it is. And and they've been bogged down,
and and you know, I thinkit's I think it's good we're seeing more
Raley in the top of the order. We're seeing more of these young guys
in the top of the order.I mean, and we'll talk about Julio
(07:00):
being moved down today. I mean, that's that's a little bit of different,
different situation there. But these guyshave just got to get some confidence.
And you got to look at historywhen it comes to Julio, the
guy always hits in June, Julyand August, and so I don't see
any reason not to believe that theguy's gonna hit in June, July,
in August like he always does.I mean, he's got a two year
sample size of just mashing the ballwhen it gets warm out, so hopefully
(07:24):
that will continue in And he's hittingabout as poorly as he did last year
at this time, so he's notthat far off. I mean, he's
further off in the power numbers,but just in the getting on base,
the batting average numbers, they're notall that far up. Yeah, and
let's get into it, Okay,you kind of mentioned that there. Today
kind of marked a significant point Ithink in Julio Rodriguez's outlook on this season.
(07:45):
We've all known that he's not sluggingthis year. He's on pace for
eight home runs. At this point, we're almost to the third point of
the season and he has two homeor a yeah, yeah, so yeah,
he's on his quarter point of theseason, excuse me, and he
has two home runs, so it'sit's going to be interesting to see if
that picks up. But I wantto know your thoughts. He got moved
down to the sixth hole today inthe fourth game of a four game series
(08:07):
against the New York Yankees. Daygame. I don't know how much of
all that goes into it, buthe's still doing his thing in the outfield.
But how concerned are you? Youmentioned that this is kind of just
what he does at the beginning ofthe year, but we haven't seen him
this singles happy, I should say, where you know, he still has
a decently high batting average, tobe honest, but he does not walking.
(08:28):
He's striking out higher than he hasbefore in his whole career, and
he's not slugging. So those threethings kind of really bring down his rest
of this value offensively. How concernedare you at this point that you know
he's not going to be able tohit those heights that maybe we expected him
to make. Well, yeah,I think I think expecting him to have
thirty five home runs this year isprobably out of the REALMA possibility. I
mean, he started too slow,but we have seen him hit like five
(08:52):
bombs in eight days before so andI think that will come. But I
think what we're looking at is moreof a probably a mid tour. He's,
you know, twenty three twenty fourto twenty five home run season kind
of more similar that he had inhis rookie year than what he had last
year with thirty two and one ohthree, just because he started so slow.
But you know, moving him downin the order today, you know,
I would echo Ian sentiments in that. Okay, I don't have a
(09:15):
problem moving him down, but whyyou're putting Mitch Garver ahead of him?
Like, what in the world hasMitch Garver done a in all of his
baseball career that says he's better hitterthan Julio and be this year that says
he's better than Julio. So youknow, moving him down is fine,
But I don't think I moved himdown to six because if you move him
down to six, then you're threateningnot giving him that fifth at bat in
baseball back and you want Julio youwant Julio to come to the plate at
(09:39):
least five times. Yeah, AndI will always be a champion for this.
I think I've mentioned this in thelast three episodes. I still think
he's best at the leadoff spot.Now. I don't know if that's best
for the Mariners at this point intime because of his struggles right now,
but I think if you want yourbest hitter to be in his best frame
of mind, it just seems likehe is at bats or look a lot
different when he's batting lead off,and that's what he was in the majority
(10:01):
of his rookie year. Now,I will say JP has earned that spot
and it if Julio is going yourbest lineup is JP, then Julio.
But I still think Julio's best atbats and best season, to be honest,
was when he was batting leadoff,just getting on base, creating havoc
on the bass pass, stealing somebases for everyone else behind him, and
(10:22):
kind of setting the tone for everyoneelse. It just seems like, I
don't know, we use the wordpressing so much, especially with him,
that he's trying to be the guyto kind of bring everyone home at that
time. And I think yeah,I think he presses less when he's in
that lead spot because his objective,it is, his mindset is I just
got to get on base, exactlyYou get on base, recavoc with my
legs, and I'm fine. Andthat's when you run into home runs exactly
(10:43):
right. You run into home runswhen you're just trying to hit line drives.
And when you're hitting in the fouryou know, three spot, two
spot, three spot, four spot, you're like, I got to jack
something, man, I got tohit the three run home run. And
that's when he gets in trouble.And you know, the numbers would support
what you're saying. And I mean, he's only had eighteen at bats in
the in the number one hole,but he's seven of eighteen with a nine
(11:05):
to forty four ohps. And thenthe two holes he's hitting out, he's
got an ops of under six hundred. So that would jive with what he's
done in the past in the onehole. And so yeah, I would
much rather see him there than seehim six. I would, just for
sure I would too. And like, and it's kind of a tough situation
because, like we mentioned, JP'skind of earned that leadoff spot and you
know, he hasn't really had thefull run in this year because of his
(11:26):
injury, so and he had agreat offensive year last year. So you
want to kind of balance getting thebest, getting the most out of your
best hitter in Julio, but alsokind of putting the right pieces around him
in order for to put together acompetent lineup. So it'll be interesting to
see how Scott's service kind of handlesthat going forward. It's because we you
mentioned his kind of mindset and theapproach at the plate. Kind of comparing
(11:50):
Julio's approach where you know, youcan get really really hot by you know,
slugging a lot, getting running intoa lot of bats or balls,
excuse me, but then comparing thatto someone like Juan Soto who's he never
goes into slump because he always getson base. You know, he's either
walking or you know, he's goingthe other way, or he's pulling two
or three home runs. It justseems like comparing those two really kind of
(12:11):
highlights. At this point in Kulio'scareer, he still has a ceiling that
I think needs to be raised becauseof that approach. I don't know ever
thought it absolutely. I mean youyou look at Stanton, Judge and Soto
this week and Julio and you're like, well, wait a second, isn't
Julio supposed to be a superstar likethose guys. Yeah, And it wasn't
even close. I mean it waslike, you know, it was like
(12:33):
you have a good NBA player andthey go up against Joker and you're like,
oh, wait a second, I'vegot a good NBA player, but
I don't have an elite NBA.Once you see the opposite side, once
you see the other side of it, like, this guy ain't elite.
So that's that's frustrating, and youknow he needs some help. I think
bringing a guy in from the outsidethat could legitimately take some pressure off him,
(12:56):
I think would would help him loads. Okay, so let's get into
that. But what kind of namesare you looking at? I know there's
a lot of talk. Mariners arestill record wise, in a great position
top the American League West. They'rein a good spot in order to go
forward and possibly add to this teamcome trade deadline or even sooner. What
positions or names are you looking atto kind of help this line up a
(13:16):
little bit? Well, I thinkthe names that have been tossed around.
Is you know Robert from the WhiteSox and Guerrero from the Blue Jays,
and you know Pete Alonzo. Imean, I'm I'm a guy who those
are those are right handed hitters.I'm a guy that kind of likes to
lean towards the left handed bat atTea Mobile Park. I don't think it's
necessarily with you, it's not necessarilya deal breaker that they're right handed.
(13:39):
But you know what, a doyou more lefties in this lineup? Yes,
we do need more lefties in thislineup. So I mean with Robert,
it's like, Okay, what's what'sthe situation right what's the injury situation
with him? He's playing down thein the Arizona League right now, and
perhaps yeah, yeah, And soI mean maybe would you be able to
get him for a song because ofthat? Because his value is so low,
(14:00):
But you know, he'd be thetype of guy that I'd love to
see, but I would I'd liketo see a left handed hit or come
in and if you could get twobats, like if you could get a
bat that can play the outfield andalso a bat that can be a first
base slash d H I think thatwould be that would be ideal. Okay,
so how do you balance that needwith I think another thing that Mariners
(14:22):
fans are kind of going about rightnow is how short the bullpen is at
the moment. You need a bullpenarm, I think because you're not gonna
be able to use andres munos everysingle night. Yeah, I think you
can get a bullpen arm without givingup too much. I mean, they
got a you know, they gota veteran there yesterday. You know,
he didn't look very good today whenhe came in, but whatever, standing
in the head, Yeah, that'sfine. The game was kind of game
(14:45):
was kind of over when he camein. But they're gonna have They're gonna
have to bring in another hard thrower. Those to me, that's the least
of my worries, just because justbecause Jerry to Poto, you know,
say what you want about to Poto, everything he touches turns to gold when
it comes to the pitching staff.So, I mean, he is able
to identify arms, he is ableto bring in the right kind of arms,
and they usually come in in fit. I mean, you know,
just rattle off the list of justwho's this guy over the last three years
(15:09):
that have come in and been awesome. Just top ya, Tyler, Right,
I come on, So I thinkyou're gonna be able to find enough
guys that can at least get youthrough. And they have so much calm.
That pen is just it just oozesconfidence. I mean, I think
it's the opposite of the offense.Like the the the offense, the some
of the parts is actually, youknow, greater than what their output is.
(15:33):
The opposite is true for the bullpen. Like the bullpen. You don't
have a ton of talent right nowin a bullpen outside outside of Munyos,
but they're just so confident, like, hey, we're the Marion a bullpen.
We go in and we pitched seventh, eighth, and ninth scoreless sittings.
That's just what we do and itworks. It works for him.
Yeah, And I'd argue a littlebit that a lot of that is because
Munos has been so good, He'sbeen my MVP so far this season,
(15:56):
because he's been mopping up a lotof things just from the rest of the
bullpen. But like you said,I think if you get one or maybe
two more guys in there, thatkind of push everyone down a slot.
In terms of high leverage situations.Then I think that makes it so much
easier to get through the bridge betweenyour your starting pitcher and to Andre's munos
(16:18):
in tight games. So I dothink that's a need. But I'm with
you. I still think offensively ismuch more important. And again, I've
been banging the left handed batter,you know, bell for the last three
years, and Luke Raley kind offeels that a little bit. He's been
playing, you know, probably oneof our best hitters the last two weeks
or so. But I just stillthink you need more. JP coming back
(16:41):
helps obviously as well. Rojas isreally cool down in the last couple of
weeks, so it'll be interesting tosee how, if, and when he
bounces back. But what position youmentioned you wanted a left handed bat,
But what position do you think youwould want if you can only choose one
to upgrade? Would it be corner, outfield, first base or something else?
For you? Probably first base,you know. I just I was
(17:04):
thinking about this today and watching watchingthe game, and I was like,
you know, when I was fortytwo or forty three years old, I
went to the Seahawks combine and wedid the forty yard dash. Oh yeah,
and I think I had like afive three nine or something like that.
And I was like, you knowwhat, I don't think ty Frantz
(17:26):
could run a five to three nine. Yeah, And I'm like, wait
a second, I'm mister radio hackthat never played anything higher than varsity level
sports, right, can run aforty yard dash faster than the Seattle Mariner
first basement at forty two years ofage. Like that's embarrassing. Yeah,
(17:47):
And it's one thing if you're slow, But if you mash a bunch of
home runs, sure, yeah,if you're slugging right, you take that.
Yeah, Like when I was growingup, you had lots of lots
of those guys. Yeah, RobDear's, Poppy Pete and cavilia Is and
the guys that were hitting two twenty, they'd be perfect today, right,
hit two fifteen but hit forty fivehomes, they'd be perfect in this day.
And yeah, who cares if theywere slow. They did one thing
(18:08):
really really well. They hit bombsand they and sometimes they played pretty decent
defense too, exactly. And it'slike France's you know, he didn't really
boot the ball today, but heshould have had it. And it's like
he doesn't do anything special. AndI've been a type France guy. I've
been like, hey, we've gotour guy at first base for the long
(18:29):
term. Look what he did intwenty twenty and twenty twenty one, like
Okay's and it's just it just notonly did it never get any better,
it just continued to get worse.And so I think, yeah, I've
kind of had enough. Really,I've kind of had enough of a lot
of those veteran guys. It's likeFrance and Hanneger. I'm getting to that
point with JP. He looks totallydifferent than play and now I'm gonna give
(18:49):
him a little bit of rope justbecause he was, you know, he
was hurt, and he was actuallyhitting fairly well in the last ten games
before he went down with the injuries. So I'm willing to give JP another
cut couple months to just kind ofto kind of get it going. But
it just seems like you watch theseyoung guys. They can move, Yeah,
Kad Zone can move, Raley canmove, they can run. They
(19:10):
could beat forty two year old mein a forty yard Nash Athleticism. Give
me some athleticism on this baseball team. Would be really refreshing. Yeah,
I'm with you. It's weird becauseI think about the ty France timeline a
little bit, and like you mentioned, had a really good year in the
shortened COVID year twenty twenty, hada good twenty twenty one two. Everyone's
like, Okay, you're starting tokind of see his potential going forward,
(19:32):
had a really good best of hiscareer first half of twenty twenty two,
if you remember he was an AllStar. That was the year he was
an All Star. And then secondhalf of twenty twenty two he really fell
off the map. By the timeit came to playoff time, he was
like one of the last hitters you'dwant to see in that situation. And
then last year he never really recovered, kind of had a lot of bapip
luck that a lot of people werementioning too that a lot of the singles
(19:56):
that were falling in twenty twenty twoweren't falling in twenty twenty four three.
And then in response to that,I think he was kind of reactionary and
people saying that he didn't really havethe pop. Okay, so I'm gonna
go to drive line. I'm gonnawork on pulling the ball more this past
offseason, and I think it's honestlymade him even I don't want to say
worse, because I like the guy. I've been around him a lot.
(20:18):
He's a great team leader, greatguy in that clubhouse. But it changed
his kind of outlook where he wasa put the ball and play guy,
hit it the other way, begood in clutch situations. And now all
he's trying to do is pull upfor home runs, and every once in
a while he does run into one, and like he did it in the
Yankee Series, but it just seemslike that has changed his entire approach and
kind of gotten away from what madehim a good hitter in twenty twenty one
(20:40):
and twenty twenty two. Well youjust look, I mean, look at
the war and the ops since twentytwenty one. I mean, here's the
war four point two three, yeah, point seven negative point two last year
in twenty twenty three year ops eightthirteen yeah, down to seven seventy seven,
down to seven oh three, downto six sixty eight. I mean,
this guy is not He's twenty nineyears of age. Ye. You
(21:03):
rarely do you find a guy thatbrings those numbers back up once they turn
turn thirty. If they're already goingdown in their late twenties, Yeah,
I'm with you. I just Ikind of hate to see it, but
I think I think you need tostart looking forward to that position and upgrading,
and you have. So this isanother angle I want to take with
you. We went against the Orioles, and you know they are the class
(21:26):
of the American League right now.I think there is even a slightly a
tick above New York in terms ofjust how good that team is. Like
New York's pitching slightly better, butthe Orioles lineup is slightly better. You
could go either way. I thinkthat'll be a really good series if that
ends up happening young it's the younglineup versus the older lineup exactly like it,
and I kind of like, I'mstill, to be honest with you
(21:47):
though, if it's ALCS game numbersix, I mean, I'm still gonna
be more afraid of Judge Stanton andso if I'm facing those than Adley Rutchman
and Gunner and those guys. Soas much as I really liked it as
Orioles, I mean I'm worried aboutthe Yankees at Yankee stadium in Game six
against the Orioles and all, yeah, no, I'm with you there.
So I mean we can go intothat at a later time. But the
(22:11):
way those two teams built their teamsis completely different, right, Yeah.
The Orioles have kept all their prospects, kept calling people up and even when
one doesn't work. Jackson Holliday,the number one overall prospect in baseball,
came up and had a historically badstretch of baseball when the two weeks he
was in the majors and they sendhim back down. Everyone else has basically
worked out someone from Jordan Westberg toColton Kowser, and like literally if you
(22:34):
look at the Baseball Savant page fortheir entire lineup, it's read everywhere.
So it's crazy how good all ofthose guys can be. And that's what
I think a lot of mlbgms cin their prospects, like, oh,
you know, if we get ridof them, they're gonna go, you
know, do something at some otherplace. We can just keep them and
call them all up at the sametime and not have to sign a big
(22:55):
free agent. And this is what'sgonna be our team for a long time,
which the Marigers kind of I haveright now. There may be a
year behind that at this point becausethey just had the MLB's record or not
record, But at this point highestpoint most prospects in the pipeline top one
hundred. I don't know how muchyou kind of put stock in that,
but at this point they have sixTyler Locklear, Cole Emerson, Cole Young,
(23:21):
Harry Ford, and I believe there'sa picture in there as well.
But would you rather them look totrade those guys or one of those guys,
maybe two of those guys this AllStar breaks slash trade deadline to go
get an established guy in MLB orkind of wait it out and kind of
go the Orioles path to where youhave all those guys coming up and playing
for your team at some point inthe near future. Well, I think
(23:44):
you develop a farm system for tworeasons, and one of the reasons is
to build your own team up,and the other reason is to produce chips
to build your team up through vatrade because listen, you're not going to
sign a free agent bat to teamMobile Park. No, you're just not
not a big one. Everybody canplay well, they don't spend money,
they don't spend money. Listen,let me just if you're one of those
people to say Mariners just don't spendmoney, all right, let me let
(24:07):
me put you in the shoes ofa major league hitter. Why in the
world would you sign with the SeattleMariners and hit in this park they give
you ten million more every year,maybe at least right because you know you're
going to die there. So Imean, unless you're like a veteran that
says, hey, this is mylast contract, you know, and I
(24:27):
like Seattle, or I have tiesto see Yeah, I've got ties to
Seattle. But I mean it's Idon't buy into Yeah, they're not going
to spend money like the top fiveto ten teams in baseball. Okay,
they're just They're just not. ButI don't think they're going to be cheap
either. If they were going tobe cheap, they wouldn't have resigned Luis
Castillo, they wouldn't have done whatthey did with Julio Rodriguez. I mean,
(24:49):
I think they want to be somewherein that middle ground where they spend
the money on the guys that aretheir core guys. They identify their guys
really not that much different than theSeahawks, right, right. The Seahawks
find their core guys and they givethem money. They don't give everybody money
because you know the teams that giveeverybody money, it's the crap teams in
(25:10):
the NFL. They give everybody moneyand they find themselves in dead cap.
Hell yeah, I'm with you.I think it's a tight, tight balance
between the two because you want tomake sure you give the right people money.
And sometimes we've seen that with theSeahawks Jamal Adams, where you don't
give the right people money. Andthere are situations where especially I think it's
(25:32):
different for the Mariners because of howbad this team has been for so long.
And I get it, I getthe whole argument. Oh, you
know, this front office has notbeen there for the full twenty years of
the drought, right, so theycan't take ownership for all of that.
But they have to understand that thisfan base is has been more patient than
(25:52):
any fan base in any sport,Right, So I think, yeah,
there has to come a time whereyou do take a risk and take that
next step. Yeah, and youknow, trade a couple of those guys,
try and overspend on a couple offree agents to if you know they're
gonna be good. Wan SODA's afree agent after this year. Yeah,
that's all I'm saying, not thathe would come here, but there's you
(26:14):
never know, they have to kindof they owe it to this fan group
because of how bad this team hasbeen. We need to see a team
like the Mariners go all in atsome point, and I just don't want
to have it be kind of thehalf assed kind of like, Okay,
we'll be the ninety win team everysingle year. And I get that's kind
(26:34):
of what the press conference was afterthe year last year. We're just trying
to win fifty four percent of ourgames, and you know, while the
optics of that look terrible, LikeI get, you're trying to build a
perpetual winner right where you're always goingto be in competition, but I think
this fan base deserves more when youget to the opportunity where you feel like
your team is there to take thatnext So I totally agree with your premise.
(26:57):
I would just say they they bringguys in, yeah, that have
pretty good resumes. Yeah, MitchGarver, Polonco, Yeah, you know,
Tayoscar Hernandez. They bring these guysin and they aren't what they were,
right, They aren't what they were. And so if I'm John Stanton,
I'm like, man, I mean, if I'm spending twenty million dollars
(27:19):
just for on a small deal twoyears, twenty million dollars and they come
in and do nothing, I'm reallynervous about going eight years, two hundred
and twenty five million dollars because ifthat guy comes in and does nothing,
we're in deep, deep truck.Definitely like the Chris Bryant contract right exactly,
or Trevor story with the Boston RedSox, although I still think he's
(27:40):
a good baseball players got injured anyways. So with that being said, uh,
there's been a lot of talks thatHarry Ford is likely to be traded
this deadline. Who would you wantto see? You could get a decent
amount for him. He's one ofthe top prospects in baseball. Maybe him
and pitching, maybe Emerson and Hancockwhat like you mentioned Luis Robert earlier.
(28:00):
I think Vlad Junior is unlikely,but he would be probably my first choice
for a guy that you still getanother year out of. Yeah, right,
So I don't know, you don'tjust get a rental out of him.
Another name that I look at,maybe a lower cost would be YONDI
Diaz from the Tampa Bay Rays.Another righty, but he doesn't strike out.
(28:21):
He's very good at putting the ballin play and kind of found his
pop last year. What what namesare you looking at if you wanted to
get rid of one of those guys. I think I'm with you on Vlad
Guerrero because he's just been so consistent. Yeah, I mean his batting average
doesn't move. No, his youknow, his ops doesn't move. He's
(28:41):
just a guy that, you know, I think would be perfect to fit
with Julio. I agree. Ithink they you know, both Dominicans,
they both knew each other for along long time. And I think Julio's
got to kind of wave the flag, right, He's got to be a
part of this. Hey, wegot to bring you guy, We got
to bring you in. I needhelp. We could be good here.
This is what our teams all about. I think. I think the Mariners
are respected around the league as agood baseball team, as a baseball team
(29:03):
on the rise that just needs acouple of pieces. And you know,
if you can get one of thosebig time names to come in and supplement
Julio and take a little of thepressure off of Julio too serious earlier.
I think that's huge. I thinkthat's a huge part of Julio's development too,
is because at such a young age, they are expecting him to be
the guy. So many other ofthese good baseball players had pretty established veterans
(29:26):
with them when they were coming up, and I don't think and one would
argue a good example of that wouldbe Carlos Santana his rookie year, someone
that I don't want to put thelanguage thing in there, but sometimes you
know, if English is your secondlanguage, you have a veteran who's been
there, done that that's well respectedby the way they can kind of translate
with the coaching staffs trying to sayinto something a young baseball player would better
(29:49):
understand. Yeah, And I thinkthat worked out really, really well.
And even last year, to alesser extent, Taoscar Hernandez too, a
veteran who you know, had thetrack record of being a good baseball player,
and Julio kind of, you know, went got hot with him at
the right time. If you lookat August of twenty twenty three, if
Julio wasn't the player of the month. Ty Oscar was literally right behind her
(30:11):
because he was just as hot ashim during the nineteen eleven it was crazy.
Yeah, twenty wins in one monthwas yeah, that's right. Record
Yeah, record in mL or Mariner'shistory. So yeah, I just think
there's no, there's not that playerthis year. He's kind of the guy
and if you look, I've beenaround them, like just personally, he's
kind of trying to step into thatleadership role. That's hard for a twenty
(30:33):
three year old. That's really reallyhard when you have a lot of kind
of I don't want to say veterans, because they're not really baseball veterans,
but older guys and that aren't maybethe same like, oh I'm gonna go
have fun every single day style ofbaseball players. So they need someone that
kind of has that juice to comein, whether it is someone like lad
whether it is you know, aYondi Diaz, whether it's there's lots of
(30:57):
examples, Luis Robert well In.Julio is such a personality that when he's
happy, I think the whole clubhouseis, you know, music's playing,
he's he's laughing, and joking,and I think it lifts everybody else.
And when Julio is struggling, Imean, he's a young kid. He's
going to bring not intentionally, butjust by his vibe. It's going to
(31:17):
bring the clubhouse down a little bit. If Julio is really feeling and he's
feeling the pressure and and so Ithink bringing somebody in to help him not
only just you know, be amentor to him in the clubhouse, but
also to be a bat behind himtoo, is going to be huge for
this baseball team. And it's notlike I don't think they're a long way
away. I mean I really don't. I think records there. Yeah,
I think if you I think ifyou brought in a big time bat like
(31:40):
that, and then a guy likea Carlos Santi right right, a guy
that that come that can come spellyou, d h spell you at first
base, a clubhouse guy, bea clubhouse guy, and then bring in
a big time outfielder, that's allyou'd need to do. And and that
I think that would run away withthe West And I think that would make
you legitimate contender for the ALCS.Okay, I'm with you there. I
(32:04):
think I want to talk about onemore thing before we get into the next
homestand and what your wishes are forthat record to be. But lately the
last two series, again a lotof it's the opponents, but it seems
like the starting pitching, which startedoff so historically good, has come down
a little bit. We saw BryceMiller struggle yesterday. Luis Castillo still good
(32:25):
today, but not elite as goodas he has been the last two or
three weeks. You know, LoganGilbert's not as good as he was at
the start of the year. Howconcerned are you for the starting rotation?
Are they going to bounce back?Is this kind of who they are or
is it going to be somewhere inbetween. Well, I think I'm gonna
go back to what I said aboutthe hitters. You asked me what the
(32:45):
biggest problem with the hitting was,and I said to T Mobile Park,
And if you just look at thepitching staff at T Mobile Park, I
mean, they're right where you wanthim to be. In home games this
year, their era is second witha two point eight. You go on
the road and all of a suddentheir era goes from second down to nineteenth.
(33:07):
They are nineteenth in era they aresixteenth in whip and they are fourteenth
in batting average again, so onceagain it's a they are the seventh or
eighth best pitching staff in baseball.They're probably they're a top five rotation,
but because they get boosted so muchat Tea Mobile Park and they go on
the road and they're like, wow, the ball really carries here. You
(33:29):
know, this is this is notsomething I'm used to, then that that
drags them into mediocrity. So Ithink they are who they are. I
think they'll finish the season with youknow, a top three ERA at home
and a top twelve maybe ERA onthe road, and that's kind of what
they are. Right they're probably thesix or seventh best ERA team in baseball
right now. Now, we expectthem to be better because we thought Brass
(33:49):
would be there and Santos would bethere. We thought that bullpen would be
a little bit better. I mean, I think everybody healthy, they're definitely
a top five ERA team, butyou know, right now they're probably six,
seventh, eight someone in there.Yeah, I'm with you. I
do think that take out the bullpen. If you just think starting pitching,
that we have the best starting pitchingstarting rotation in baseball. I don't think
there's a team in the league thatI would take above the Seattle Mariners.
(34:13):
They're just kind of going through acold stretch again, like you said,
a part of it's being on theroad a little bit more part of its
playing the opponents they've been playing.So I think once kind of that regresses
back to the mean a little bitmore, that'll even itself out. I'm
not concerned. I haven't seen anythinglike glaring that that would concern me.
I think, like I said,Castilla was good today, could have been.
(34:35):
It could have been a lot worseif he didn't make some big pitches.
I think Brian wu coming back reallyreally helps you. He's looked excellent
all three of his starts that he'shad so far, so and two of
them against really good offenses. Sohe's going to add some to that,
which makes that staff even better.So Yeah, I have little to no
concern with the starting rotation. Istill am a little bit concerned about that
(34:55):
bullpen because it really just has beenMuno's lately. It's been doing it.
So Luckily, you haven't been anya lot of close games, and when
you have, you can use him, so it hasn't bit them just yet,
but I want to take a lookat the after the three games at
DCV, both agree that they shouldwin that series, if not sweep.
(35:15):
You got the Astros for three fourexcuse me, four against the Astros at
home and three against the Angels beforeyou head on the road again. Out
of that seven game stretch, howmany games do you expect them to win
and how many are you wanting themto win? Yeah, I think I
expect them to win four, fourto seven. Spect him to win four
(35:37):
and seven, I think, ButI don't necessarily if I think, I'd
sign out a court for four andthree, because five and two is very
doable. Doable against those two baseballteams, I'm not. I mean,
Houston obviously is better than they've shown, but you know they're still probably only
a mid eighties win baseball team.Yeah, so you got to show that
(36:00):
you're better than them, and it'dbe great if you could take three or
four against Houston and then two orthree against an Angels, a team that
you're definitely better than. Yeah.Yeah, I think Angels you should expect
to win the series, if notsweep that The four games against the Astros
is huge for me because they've beensurging lately. Kyle Tucker is in the
MVP conversation. He's been playing justas well. As we talked Aboutjuan Soto
(36:21):
and how good he's been to startthe year, Kyle Tucker's been just as
good. So it's pretty crazy howgood he has been. That offense is
still doing it. They have topto bottom one of the best offenses in
baseball. It's there pitching that hasn'tbeen as good this year, and I
think that's one of the reasons whythey have, you know, fallen off
a little bit. That four gamestretch could be the time to say,
you know what, no, Astros, you're not coming back. Your dynasty's
(36:45):
done. Win three out of fourthere and you can kind of shut the
door on them for at least alittle while. Coming back. Oh yeah,
you win three of four, you'reprobably going to be seven up.
Yeah. You know, if youlose three of four, one or two
exactly a huge difference. It's very, very big difference. And then you
have a legitimate three team race inthe division if you exactly take one out
of those completely agree. So Ithink that's that four game series is gonna
(37:07):
be interesting. It's at T MobilePark. We just talked about home versus
Road. Go pitch, go pitch, Go pitch, go, pitch,
go pitch. Let's make sure weshut those guys out. I do not
want to see any Astros in theplayoffs this year, so that would make
everything looks so much better in termsof just the outlook and how far this
team can go and then go inthe Angels series. All Right, Dick,
I really appreciate you joining with metoday. Good conversation. This has
(37:30):
been Mariner's weekly. We'll get intouch every week after the midweek series,
so that means next week we'll we'llchat with you guys after the Astro series,
so hopefully we'll have some good newsto report on that front. But
the Mariners in the stretch of morethan ten games in a row without an
off days, so they they're gonnabe gonna be continuing to grind here.
(37:51):
So let's let's follow it along withyou guys. I'm Anderson Hurst. That's
Diick Faine. I'll talk to youguys next week on Thursday,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.