Larry Stone on 2024 M’s, Trade Targets, Injuries, Osobor, California

Legendary sports writer Larry Stone joins Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain to talk about the feeling surrounding the 2024 Mariners so far, trade targets for the team to get grab before the deadline, continued pitching injuries, and Great Osobor joining the Huskies.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's time for our weekly conversation withlegendary sports writer Larry Stone, brought to
you by the Ram Restaurant and Brewery, Bigger, better, and fresher since
nineteen seventy one, with eight digitsound locations from Marysville to Lacey and everywhere
in between. There's a Ram thereyou now with Softy and Dick, here's
Larry Stone. All right, Sonormally we would do this on Wednesday night,

(00:23):
right at five o'clock. But thepesky NFL schedule release show was yesterday
at five. So Larry's a bigdeal. He's just not as big a
deal as the NFL schedule release,anything as big a deal as the NFL
right now, Oh not at all. Well, big thanks to the RAM
for doing this every Wednesday, andreally big thanks to Larry for agreeing to

(00:45):
do it. To be honest withyou, I mean to me, that
was the biggest challenge of all ofthis whole thing. So moving on every
Wednesday, starting next week, LarryStone with us. Larry, how are
you men? I'm doing great.It wasn't really It didn't take much armed
to listing for me to do this, so I'm happy to do it.
Yeah, there's not much going on, you're kind of bored. I get
it. We're just trying to killyour day, man, We're trying to

(01:07):
give you something to do, andwho does it. Well, let's before
we talk about the Hawks and theschedule all that stuff. Day off for
the Mariners. Forty four games intwenty four and twenty game and a half
up. What is Larry Stone's kindof observations after the first forty four games
of the year. Well, Igo back to April fourteenth, I think

(01:30):
it was when they were six andten. They look terrible, panic in
the streets, and since that they'veplayed a month and a day or two
days, and they're they're playing sixforty three baseball since then, which which
is a one hundred and four winpace. So you know, every time
they lose, I look at thecomments and the tweets and it's it's nothing

(01:55):
but vitriol. And yet this teamhas been one of the best teams in
baseball for a full month. SoI think they're trending in the right direction.
Some guys are starting to swing betterwhen the offense comes around. I
think they're going to be a reallydangerous team because I don't think that the
pitching's not going to be as eliteas it was during that stretch of you

(02:16):
know, six plus two and fewerruns that they had for over twenty games,
But it's going to be it's goingto be very very good, and
with any kind of offense, Ithink they're they're going to stay very strongly
in contention the rest of the way. Yeah. I sent out a poll
yesterday on Twitter asking about the vibeof the fans and whether it's positive or

(02:38):
negative, and actually sixty four percentsaid it was positive. Now, it
was probably five or six hours aftera win, so that might have been
something to do with it. Butthen also, I mean, how positive
would the vibe be, Larry ifthe Mariners had the exact same records they
have right now. But Texas wasthirty and twenty and Houston was twenty nine

(02:59):
and twenty one. We were inthird place four games out. Yeah,
that's a that's a that's a greatpoint. You know, first place is
first place, and uh, butthey've been the victim of that in the
past years where if they were inother divisions, they would have gone to
the playoffs. You know, theDiamondbacks went to the World Series with with
four or five fewer wins than theMariners had last year, and the marriage

(03:22):
didn't make the playoffs. The Diamonbackssnuck in and and then went all the
way to the World Series. Sothere you know, you're in the division,
you're in and and so. Butyour point is well taken. That
a lot of it is because thosetwo teams are struggling really badly, particularly
the Astros or the Astros are startingto win some games, and I think

(03:43):
we're gonna we're gonna hear from thembefore the years over. No, I
think you're right about that. LarryStone again is with us. It'll be
with us every Wednesday at five movingforward, courtesy of the RAM. And
I don't really have a question foryou. I'm just going to make a
statement and then just have you kindof pick it up because I don't even
know what the question is, tobe honest with you. But I'm looking
at George Kirby, Bryce Miller,Logan Gilbert and Brian Wu and these guys

(04:05):
are making like two point nine milliondollars combined. It is insane the value
that this team is getting from theirstarting rotation. If there's ever a year
to go out and spend some bigmoney on a bat to help this team
out, isn't it. Twenty twentyfour, that was a question thought.

(04:30):
He's not a legend for nothing there, So I'm not as dumb as I
think. Oh absolutely, I'm I'mwith you one hundred percent on that.
If it's screams for a big,big ticket item like they did two years
ago with Castillo, and look whatthat did for them, that helped them

(04:51):
get into the playoffs and break thedrought. Now, I think if you
get the right bat to go withthat pitching, maybe it helps you break
the drought, the big drought ofnot getting to the World Series and there
you know, there's going to besome interesting names available. Uh the peteolph
Fonso Alonso is the name that's beingthrown out there. I don't think the
Met's are going to trade him becauseeven though they're even though they're under five

(05:14):
hundred, they're actually in I thinkthey were in the playoffs under five hundred
just because there's there's there's five teamsin the National League that that are over
five hundred. So if you hoveraround five hundred, you're going to be
in contention. And he's he's thefranchise and they're being uprising. If they
traded him, I think they willonly trade him if they really collapse.
And I just don't I just don'tsee that. But you know, lou

(05:35):
Louise Robert with the White Sox iscurrently injured, but he'll be back,
you know. He he's a guytouted as a superstar a couple of years
ago and had a great year lastyear. Uh, he does strike out
a lot, but the boy oncehe looked good in the He's a center
fielder, but he played a corneroutfield. Uh, he's the White Sox

(05:56):
are going nowhere. I'm sure they'lllisten to offers for him, and they
need prospects and the Mariners do haveprospects to trade. It's always painful to
trade those guys, those top onehundred guys, but you know, they
did it with to get Castilla,and I think they need to do it
again this year. And there's othernames out there. Rooker with the with
the a's is an interesting name.They do have a lot of positions where

(06:18):
you could where you could sub guysin outfield, Uh, you know,
first base, probably any infield position. Someone like Rojas could move to second
base if Polanco doesn't start hitting,But there's a lot of there's a lot
of options that that are there forthem, and I think it's it behooves

(06:41):
them. It's absolutely a crying needto go get a guy because this offense
as it is is subpar right now. It may get a little bit better
than that, but there's there's it'snever going to be a it's not going
to be an elite offense. Soanything you could do to help it is
going to help this team go wherethey want to go. Larry big picture
question on base The New York Timeswrote an article was picked up by The

(07:02):
Athletic entitled can we solve Baseball's existentialcrisis? And that is the injuries to
these starting pitchers? And I thoughtthis was a really interesting stat. In
nineteen seventy five, starting pitchers wentsix or more seventy percent of the time,
and that only dropped in forty years. That only dropped from seventy to

(07:24):
sixty two percent. So in twentyfifteen it was still at sixty two percent.
It's now at thirty nine percent.It's gone from sixty two percent to
thirty nine percent in nine years.So what can be done? I mean
they threw out some ideas you haveto you make a starter, he has
to go six innings, or youget penalized or what can be done because

(07:45):
this is this is alarming. Yeah, there's something about you know, you
want to go to the ballpark tosee you know, my time Sandy Kofex
or Bob Gibson or you know thenPaco Martinez, Hendye Johnson. Uh yeah,
but now I mean bullpen games,which I hate. I've always hated

(08:05):
that. I understand why they doit, but it's just not it's not
conducive to building fan interests. Youknow, the Mariners have some guys that
go five or six or sometimes seven. But uh yeah, I you know,
I think the bullpens have gotten sostrong and valuable and injuries have become

(08:30):
so prevalent because guys are thrown sohard with such spin that, uh,
you've got a baby the pictures andI agree it is an existential dilemma for
major League Baseball. I don't haveany brilliant answers other than maybe need to
rethink how pictures are groomed in theminor leagues. And I don't like the
idea of mandating six hitting starts,because that's just going to lead to more

(08:54):
injuries. But you know, atsome point, I think they're going to
have to look at do you wantguys throwing one hundred miles an hour and
burning out in two or three years? And you know, maybe maybe organizations
will decide that having guys stay healthylonger is better than having always ever rotating

(09:18):
group of heart throwers that knowing thatyou can't build any allegiance to because they're
getting hurt all the time. Andyou know, I think there's a lot
of talk about the velocity and howit's just not the arm is just not
built for that. So I thinkthe solution is built around that dealing with
that problem. Well, first ofall, I'm shocked that you saw Sandy

(09:41):
Kofax's pitch. I didn't think youwere that old for crying out loud.
To be honest with you, hislast year was nineteen sixty six, So
you did you see him at theend of his career when he was a
badass? I did? I mean, I grew up in Los Angeles,
a huge Dodger fan. I wasborn in fifty seven, so I was
like nine when he quit. Whenhe retired at age by the way,
he retired after a cy young seasonwhere he set the major league record for

(10:05):
strikeouts and went twenty seven and nine. Uh, and then he retired.
You know, talk about a guygoing out on top. Yeah, but
I did go to do I wentto Dodger Stadium and saw him two or
three times. Wow, I wasgonna ask him, what was say Young
like to watch him? Larry Stoneswith us. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Shot, Yeah, it's uh.I don't want to go too deep

(10:28):
with enough for I was gonna bebe nice. I've divish has been giving
me old man jokes for the lastten years. You can't offend me.
It's a sign of respect, bythe way, Larry Stones with us,
Larry you you mentioned two things therethat I want to follow up on.
One of them. When you mentionedstrikeouts, the first thing I thought of

(10:50):
was Mitch Haniger versus Tioscar Hernandez,because Taskar Hernandez is on pace for forty
one home runs and one hundred andthirty six RBIs for the Dodgers right now,
but also on pace to strike outtwo hundred and twenty times. Well,
Handerger's on pace for one hundred andseventy three, so it's only a
month and a half in. Butwhat's your take on the swapping out ta
Oscar to get Mitch Hanniger back move. Well, I guess you could say

(11:15):
it hasn't worked out. I mean, the the blueprint to cut down on
the strikeouts, it's been a failurebecause they're striking out more than they than
they were. And I mean oneof the reasons to ta Oscar's on pace
to drive in one hundred and thirtyruns is that he's following Betts O'tawny,
will Smith Freeman. I mean,you and I could get one hundred RBIs

(11:41):
in that line up. I thinkif we hit you know the fifth or
six, well you maybe not mebecause I'm too old, But well,
we'll see where they are at theend of the year. But I mean,
tay Oscar has the credit to him. He's had a great year so
far. And you can live withstrikeouts if you're producing home runs and driving

(12:05):
in runs along with that. We'veseen that with lots of guys right now.
The guys and a lot of guyson the Mariners who are striking out
are not are not producing in theirother at bats to so that you can
live with the strikeouts. You know, there's guys that you can if they
strike out two hundred times, butit's forty home runs, you're okay with

(12:28):
that. And there are guys whofit that profile. But right now the
Mariners guys are just striking out alot, but not driving the extra base
hits and the home runs that youthat you need. Larry, if I
had to ask you a couple ofweeks ago about I said, Larry,
there's now a two million dollar collegebasketball player, And I'm gonna say,
you're gonna guess which school he signedwith. Where would Washington come on that

(12:52):
list? And what do you thinkabout a two million dollar college basketball player?
I would not have put them onmy list. But but you look
at what they did with retaining Pennixand Oduse and those guys, and it
shows that they do have a robustand very effective NIL program at the school

(13:16):
in football. So I guess itstands the reason that the same people could
pull it together for basketball. It'simpressive, It really is. Uh.
You know, I think they're they'reputting together a really interesting team, which
they haven't had for for a lostlong time. There hasn't been much of
a reason to follow Husky basketball,but there certainly is this year with the

(13:39):
guys they're bringing in no doubt,so I'm yeah, I'm looking forward to
it as well. Larry Stone withus and Larry before you go, I
got to ask you, because yesterdaywe had Petro Spapadacus on the year.
We're talking about UCLA and the BigTen, and I got to be honest
with you, I'm a little bitconcerned about your alma mater in the ACC
in cal How do you think Californiais athletic department looks in four or five

(14:01):
years from now after spending some timein the ACC Not good. Yeah,
I'm I'm as worried as you are. It's just not a good fit.
That the athletic department's kind of ina little bit of chaos. They just
talk about an existential dilemma. Theycan't really decide whether they want to be

(14:24):
a team that prioritizes athletics or not, and they're sort of in no man's
land, and now it's going tobe the worst. You know. They
are getting that money from me toCLA, which I suppose will help a
little, but I would not besurprised that at some point Callent Stanford exit
the ACC and join some reformed,revised, new pack packed something, which

(14:48):
is what they should have done inthe first place. I would have preferred
to see them align with Washington Stateand Oregon State can go to the a
CEC. Well, wouldn't it be? Yeah, I mean it would be
the Western division of the Super Conference. Right, it'd be Washington, Oregon,
Stanford, cal usc UCLA. Boom, there's your division, right,
yeah, I mean that would bebeautiful. I think everybody would like that

(15:11):
if they could pull that off.We'll see how I think there's gonna be
a lot of schools that may endup wondering why they did what they did
and really and believing it's not gonnawork out. I hope it's so.
I hope it's not the Huskies,but I think there's going to be some
schools in that boat. Yeah,no doubt. Hey, before you go,
what was Ty Cobb like to cover? He's gonna do this every week

(15:35):
to you, Larry, It's justthat's sorry, it's a little hanging fruit.
You can get me back next Wednesday. Man, Hey, great stuff.
Enjoy the weekend. We're talking aweek a right, well, all
right, thanks you bet. LarryStone with us on the radio show.
Just give me the name of annext maybe guidance playing in the twenties,
and I'll throw it at Larry whenhe comes on every Wednesday at five courtesy
of our friends at the RAM.Big thanks to them for sponsoring that every

(15:56):
Wednesday at five, but today onThursday at four. Championship Update with Westwood
One right now,