Furness Show 4-22: Mariners, Ron Francis, Molly Whop Monday, Daily Power Play, Tod Leiweke.

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We'll talk to the GM of theKrakend coming up in about ten minutes time.
Oh but first Mariners, the Convererceconverse abouts have molliwop Monday today for
our baseball team that has found itsway just a half game out of first
place in the American League West,which all of a sudden, is just
an absolutely awful division. Yeah,awful. And it's not that they've played

(00:21):
each other and beat each other.They haven't played each other that much,
so it's a it's just it's justa bad it's bad division. That's the
voice of Andrews. I me andof course we're here today and it's NFL
Draft week, man, it is. It is a great week, fun
week of the year. We getafter it. This is listen. We
got draft talk. We'll get tothat coming up a little b later in
the show, especially at two o'clock. I think today as we sit out
here getting ready for really an incrediblethree days in which we I say we

(00:46):
we at kJ R will be allover it for you guys. We'll be
here on at the Virginia Mason AthleticsCenter for Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
I always like to pump up ourSaturday coverage if I can. If I
can't do it really quick, okay, just because we're there early in the
morning and we're there tel you know, end of the afternoon when thing's just
shut down, so when you're outand about driving around. Yeah, anybody

(01:06):
can do draft coverage on Thursday andFriday, right, anybody can do that.
Anybody can do first round draft coveragethe real the real ogs, you
know what they do. They doday three and that's what we'll be doing.
So we'll be out there plenty ofdraft talk all week. The Miller
Millan Maler Maler Millan Mock Draft isWednesday. There's a draft miss party with

(01:26):
our morning show. I believe it'sFriday. We'll get you the details on
that in the show a little bitlater on today as well, so you
can actually go out and see oursee our fine afternoon and morning drive host
in their element doing their thing.This week. But yeah, so we
got a lot going on. Bringinga molliwop at one o'clock today Nathan and

(01:46):
Chris and conversation will be the weekthat was a five and one week for
our baseball team. I'm gonna startthere right now before I get into hockey
in the NFL. But we'll startthere. Five and one week. Some
of the bats mostly came alive,yes, the possible exception of the first
game of the doubleheader yesterday. Butman, you'll take a five and one

(02:07):
week all day and every day.I don't care. I don't care how
bad those teams are they played that. Listen to the Cinney Reds and the
colorid of Rockies. Can't pitch alick and they couldn't pitch a lick.
But here's here's what has to happen. And it doesn't matter what sport.
Honestly, this is where sports areall very much similar. How things operate

(02:28):
in the NHL, how things operatein the NFL, major weak baseball different.
But you got to beat the teams. You got to be right,
and those teams that they just played, you have to beat them. And
we talked about it last week thathoping to see you like a five and
one week, right and and maybeeven as two sweeps. And that's a
lot to ask. We saw exactlythat. We saw five in one week,
and we saw this team. Andlast week we're doing a show on

(02:51):
Tuesday, last unique show. Noone's ever done it. Class half full
of glass half emptier math. Wow, I've never never seen that before.
But we added, we added,of course the big one, right,
just not a softy. But andhere was the interesting thing last week,
this is the interesting thing. Ithink we had more people last week give

(03:12):
us kind of the man response,just to the apathetic response to the baseball
team, more so than being mador upset, more so than being than
being you know, okay with thingsin glass half full. There were some
people cheerleading and there's great, we'refine, and there's others saying that the
season's over. But what we hadlast week was more of a just kind
of an apathetic right response. Yeah, the worst, the absolute worst thing

(03:35):
in sports is if you get tothat apathy level, if you get to
the point where you're apathetic, getto the point where you're not excited,
you're not enthused, and maybe youget to the point as well at some
point where you're just you've lost thatjuice and that momentum. And I think
we were there last week. Now, you have three games at home,
you sweep. One of those isa day game, the crowds weren't great

(03:58):
last week. Then you go onthe road, weird kind of weekend split,
doubleheader, all the things that tookplace. But this is a team
that's kind of got itself on aroll right now, and you feel like
maybe they've turned the corner. Thebats are heating up a little bit.
The pitching is exactly what we thoughtit would be. It's elite. Now
there is a concern, there isa there is a concern out there.

(04:20):
The concern would be this, what'sthe status of George Curty. Yes,
I see a quote after the gamethat says armed soreness, velocity down.
Okay, here's where I'm glass halfempty. I watched Robbie Ray pitch.

(04:40):
I remember my son and I wentto that second game of the year last
year and saw Robbie Ray pitch andI remember we looked up a couple of
times and goo, God, likehis velocity is down. That's cold night.
We were both bundledup. Hell,we're wearing gloss, for God's sakes,
not Russell Wilson glove for a firstpitch. By the way, did
you see that? No? Idid not have to see that. Oh
my god, my guy in pissfreake. Tim Bens goes, what is

(05:04):
with this guy? Like dude,you're just said I said, you're gonna
you're gonna be highly entertained all yearlong. Anyway, that aside, we
had a great, great conversation becauseyou know, as we're going through this
process, you're like, Okay,they win. I'm watching the game of
my daughter yesterday. We're happy.Everything's good. First game was kind of

(05:26):
a bomber. Second game, butthey got light tile pitching, so you
can live with that. Yeah,you live with that. But then you
see sort of and I'm like,oh, please, don't don't rain on
this parade. Don't go down becauseI think we all agree Kirby's probably your
best picture, yes, like whenlike, all due respect to Castillo,
Gilbert, anybody, he's probably yourbest picture. But that's the only downside.

(05:46):
And I'm gonna go, We're noteve gonna worry about that right now.
We won't. Let's just let's assumehe's fine. I just kind of
I did have this little cold chillgo down my spine when I saw that
quote. Well, especially with allthe elbow stuff that's been going on.
Well, and that's the problem inbaseball, right is that there's just it's
just been a massive issue with guysgoing down. But let's let's go just
what's good. What's good is this. This team went out and this team

(06:09):
had and did what it needed todo. It It flipped a switch,
It flipped the narrative, and itwas a terrific week of baseball. And
now we have something really to kindof look forward to the next three days,
three against Texas. Whoever wins thatseries comes out on top of the
American League West for the week.And I don't care what damn day it
is. It doesn't matter if it'sApril, if it's May, it's June,

(06:30):
July, August. When you lookat the standings, and I'm old,
I still do that in the morning, I look at the standings like,
go, look at those. Iwant to see my team on the
top of the ledger. Yeah,and having to battle back and having to
crawl out of a hole all seasonis no fun. Listen, Houston's gonna
try to do it. Maybe theycan, maybe they can't. And track
record says they probably will find away, the greasy slime balls that they

(06:51):
are. But but you don't wantto have to do that. Heck,
we're gonna talk to Ron Francis herein a couple of minutes. You know
what hurt this team or anything thisyear, beside the fact they couldn't score,
start they start as slow and you'retrying to fight your way out of
coming from under five hundred all seasonlong. In a year in which you
needed ninety seven odd points to getto the postseason, you had to be

(07:13):
ten plus games over five hundred.You had to get to that point.
Well, when you start the seasonfour, five, six games under five
hundred, that's a hard task.You're playing seven to fifty winning percentage hockey
the rest of the season or baseball. So good on the ms. They
did what they had to do thisweek. We'll get to that coming up
at one o'clock with the boys Awant of draft talks starting at two o'clock
today, but coming up next.Ron Francis is the general manager of your

(07:36):
Seattle Kraket. What does the futurehold for Dave Hackstall, his coaching staff,
What about the rest of the organization? Restricted free agents? And what
went wrong last year? What willgo right in the future for these guys
to turn it around. We'll findout from Ron Francis coming up next.

(08:01):
Now back to the in for Netshow. Brought to you by snow Call
me casino, all right, welcomeback in Sports forty ninety three point three
KJFM. You infront's with you?Or the thirty two bar and grill where
I'll be honest with you. It'sa little too quiet today. Ron Francis
is the GM of the Seattle Crack, and he's with us and kind enough
to sit down after his news conferenceearlier. Wanted to get a little one
on one on here on the homeof the Crack in ninety three point three

(08:22):
KJFM. It is a little quiet, isn't it. This isn't what you
like right now this time year.I like this time of year, not
at all. How would you letme just I'll give you the open,
blank slate. How would you evaluatethe season? The goals always get to
the playoffs, But if you wereto write a summary, what would you
say about this past year? I'dsay frustrating. I don't think we ever
really got going. I thought,you know, we had you know,

(08:45):
we're kind of inconsistent, played somegood games and we have a losing streak,
and then I have a winning streak, and then we have a losing
streak, and it just didn't seemlike this season was as easy as it
was last year. Right, youknow, last year we get into the
season, had a lot of success, really didn't have any serious injuries until
February when Berakowski Tour is growing.And this year it seemed right out of

(09:07):
the gate we were dealing with issuesand injuries and we just couldn't get our
chemistry together and get our game goingthe way we hope we could. Guys
kind of took a step back alittle bit too. I mean, I'm
assuming you people kind of I don'twant to say tend to forget, but
it's a hard salary cap league.It's not like baseball. There were some
comparisons manner wise. Maners had theplayoff year twenty twenty two, didn't do

(09:28):
a lot, kind of came backwith the same core group, moved ahead.
Now they don't have a salary captdeal with you do you have a
cap to deal with. You hadto sign Vince, You had to sign
Borgain, guys that were big timecontributors for you, So there wasn't a
lot you could do. Were yousurprised by guys taking a step back at
least statistically, whether it be MaddieI know Berkowski missed some games, but
other guys kind of taking a stepback statistically. Yeah, I mean two

(09:52):
parts of that. The first oneis, even though we got to the
game seven in the second round lastyear, we did not say we couldn't
do anything. We tried. Wetook actually a couple of big swings guys
we just couldn't couldn't get it doneon trade wise. Trade wise for some
big names, it just it didn'twork out. But you know, I
think when you have a season likeyou have last year and you're the number

(10:13):
one shooting percentage team in the league, there's really only one direction you can
go, right. We were probablyin a lot of cases above what their
career average was in shooting percentage thisyear, and a lot of cases were
below it. I certainly didn't seeus dropping from one to twenty eight shooting
percentage. I didn't see us droppingfrom four and goals four to twenty ninth
in the league and goals four.But certainly that that's an area of concern.

(10:37):
From a positive standpoint, you know, I thought our goaltending was solid,
our goals against was was real good. We finished ninth in the league.
We're the only team that's in thetop ten that didn't make the playoffs.
So there's a lot of positives inthat part of our game, and
a lot of those names are returning, so we feel comfortable there, but
we do have to go out andaddress the four position and find more production.

(11:01):
Ron Francis with me, I wantto get to the goaltenders in a
second. I mean that was certainlya highlight boy watching Joey this year was
I mean, if you're any kindof you don't have to be a hockey
faner, just a sports fan towatch this young guy and his enthusiasm and
after games, after wins and whathe meant the crowds channing his name.
I mean, it was those werethe highlights for me this season. You
mentioned that your top you're the ninthand league goals against the average, but
you're twenty ninth and goal scored.Is it as simple as that? That

(11:24):
just this team, it has agood court. There's teams that aren't the
playoffs. Ron, you and Iboth can look at and say there are
long ways away. Now that's notyou. Is it just a matter of
a high end goal scorer to afinisher, a true finisher. Yeah,
I know, we still strongly believein our core. We still strongly believe
in the pieces we have coming.The future with some of the pieces we
have is extremely bright, but it'sa process to get them there. So

(11:46):
in the meantime, you know,we can't sit there and wait and rely
on those pieces to come. Wehave to go and find something in the
interim. So that's our goal ofthe summer. I mean, we have
cap space, we have draft capital, so whether it's going into the free
agent market, whether it's trying tomake a trade, those are things we're
certainly going to work hard at tryingto do the summer because we want to

(12:09):
make sure we get the goalscoring backand we're back where we want to be
in the playoffs next year. Whatdo you think happened to Maddie. I
mean, there was, like youmentioned, the shooting percentage is gonna be
regressing back a little bit to anorm, But just overall, it didn't
feel like you ever looked real comfortableout there. Yeah. No, it's
you know, we forget how younghe is. We come off the season
like you had last year, theycalled the trophy winner. You know,

(12:30):
we had some conversations in summer,couldn't get a deal that both sides were
comfortable with, so we went intothe season without a contract. I have
to think on a young guy,that weighs on his mind. You know,
he had a stretch even in thein the Collar Cup year where he
struggled to score goals or a periodof time. But it happened more in
the middle of the season. Towardsthe end of the season. It wasn't
a big deal. This one happenedright out of the gate. I see

(12:52):
you go your first thirteen games withouta goal, and all of a sudden,
as a young kid, you're thinking, oh boy, here I go.
So it was a bit of achallenge for sure. Day his credit,
you know, he continues to workand and try to do the things
he needs to do to be successful. And I have no doubt that he'll
be He'll be fine for us inthe long term moving forward, he's in
RFA. I mean, that's prioritynumber one in the off season to get

(13:16):
that deal done. I assume,yeah, no, we'll start talks up
here again soon and hopefully hopefully wecan get something. There's a GM you
have a coaching staff will get tothat. To say this organization is a
GM that's a Hall of Famer.That's when you look at the all time
scores in the National Hockey League,you're on that list. You're in the
top three. You're right there.Can you ever talk to a guy like
Matty Beineers? Do you ever talkto a guy like Maddy Beineers? Because

(13:37):
I'm sure even the numbers you putup are on you probably had a day
or year, a month like hehad this year. Oh yeah, I
certainly had stretches for sure. Yeah. No, And you do that right.
You know, when he starts offand he's struggling, things are going,
well, man, hey mighty,pop up my office, let's have
a little chat, and you know, you try and give him some things
that help him, but you alsotry and lighten the situation a little bit,

(13:58):
right, Like, you know,hey, I know you haven't scored
in eight games. I'm pretty sureyou're not going to go eighty two games
out a goal. It just goout there and play. It's going to
happen. So there's things you tryand do. But you know, you're
twenty one year twenty twenty year oldkid, theyrety twenty one. It's there's
a lot of a lot of pressure. There's a lot of things that you
put on your mind, and youknow, ultimately you can't go out on
the ice and do the things thatyou'd like to do to help them or

(14:22):
or be the guy that sets themup for that goal. So it's a
process to it. It's it's unfortunatelypart of the learning link. Very few
things in this business are are youknow, where you start and you finish,
and it's all linear, right,There's always ups and there's downs,
and it happens season to season,it happens month to month. That happens
game to game and sometimes within thegame. So you know, I feel

(14:43):
that Maddie is uh is still akey part of our organization moving forward,
and he'll bounce back from this,you know, better and stronger, and
you know, expect a good yearout of them next year. Ron Francis
kind of up to stop by withthis year and you're home with the crack
and night three point three K familyin fronts with you this afternoon. All
right. The big question obviously iscoaching, and you know that's the business

(15:03):
of professional sports everyone and I knowyou addressed in the news conference earlier.
We heard it in the open ofour show today. No decision has been
made yet. Where are we withthe coaching staff, whether it be Dave
or the rest of the staff.Yeah, I know, we're at the
point where we do everything we alwaysdo at the end of the season,
right, So we as a managementteam look at ourselves and say, you
know, maybe we should have DoDthis in the off season or are we

(15:24):
looking back on that, why didn'twe do this? So we assess that.
We have conversations with the coaching staffas to what they saw, what
they what they liked, what theydidn't like. You know, are there
things you know deeper this to whywe didn't score goals? Are the things
tactically we need to change? Youknow, what are your thoughts on that?
So we go through all those allthose discussions with them. We assess

(15:46):
our team and our team play.We assess our team and individual play.
We do a deep dive with ourR and D team. I mean,
that's why they're here to help uson that, you know. And we
formulate a plan on what we wantto do here moving far. And obviously
I have discussions with our ownership groupin a Samantha hall Away and and and
our group there and then they've beengreat and saying, hey, go do

(16:08):
what you got to do to makeus successful. So our plan is to
not sit here and say, oh, it's just an off year or we
had some injuries, we'll be betternext year. Our plan is to go
out there this summer and try anddo the things we think we can do,
whether it's free agency or trades,to help ensure that that doesn't happen
again. And with the coaching staff. This is new to a lot of
us in this market obviously, inyou know what we're used to in.

(16:32):
For example, in the NFL,the NFL season ends, if there is
going to be a coaching change,it happens almost immediately within twenty four to
forty eight hours. In the NationalHockey League, it feels like, because
of what you just said, there'sa lot of evaluation. So what you're
kind of telling us is no decisionhas been made, whether it be Dave
or the rest of the staff asof right now. Yeah, And you
know, I think people are goingto read into that one way or the
other, no matter what I say. But it's you know, I think

(16:55):
it's it's us doing our due diligenceon everything. And trying to make that
assessment and uh and going through allthe things that we think factor into making
that decision. Teams make changes duringthe season. Sometimes teams make changes right
after the season. Heck, Ithink last year Nashville let the guy go
kind of towards the end of June. So, I mean, there's always

(17:15):
different things that happen, you know, But in our case, this is
our process at the end of theyear. We did it after year one,
we did it after year two,even though he was a finalist for
Coach of the Year. We stillwe still have those discussions and reviews and
and and that's what we're doing rightnow. We blame the players a lot
of times, like media and fanslike, oh, like Maddy didn't score,
Bererakowski didn't score. You know,done was heard all those things when

(17:38):
you watched was coaching and issued allthis season? I mean, when you
evaluate, I mean, yeah,no, it's hard. It's a big
question. I know, I'm tryingto be fair with it, but I
mean I think if you're valuing players, but you're evaluating the coach, Yeah,
you're valuating everything you know, isthere you know, is there the
perfect coach? No? I wasnever the perfect player, even though you
said I'm in the Hall of Fameand League score quard I made miss I

(18:00):
think, yeah, no, thereare there are things, right, there's
no such thing as perfect, Butso is there things that we did that
maybe we'd like to do differently.Yeah, And we have those discussions.
We have him during the season,we have them postseason. You know,
we look at trying to find reasons. Is it's strictly the coach. I
mean we had, As I said, last year, I think I think

(18:22):
we had. Burakowsky was our onlymajor injury. It was like thirty games.
It didn't hapen till February, soour lines were pretty much set.
We got to play together, wegot to play with each other. We
had that sort of consistency in thatchemistry and started producing offense and everything went
good. This year was totally different. And it's not an excuse, but
Tanna was hurt in game one,missed the next twelve. You know,
we didn't have it out there publicly, but Everily broke his hand in game

(18:45):
four, played six weeks with abroken hand. Burukowski was injured in Game
six, played one of the nextthirty thirty games. So and it went
on with that with different guys inshorts and what have you. So we
always seemed to be we had tojug whether it was line combinations, whether
it was powerplay units, whether itwas PK units. We were always trying
to piece things together. And that'snever easy for coaching staff. It's never

(19:08):
easy for players to build that sortof chemistry and camaraderie with the guys you're
playing with because it's changing, youknow, way too frequently. And Dave
and his staff's you know, defense, it's not without trying. I mean,
for a team that was massively consistent, more so than anything. I
remember watching the second half last inthe playoffs. I mean, you're your
top nine never changed outside of aninjury. You know, I can't get

(19:29):
s banged up car, she jumpsup, what have you. But it
never changed. The three defenseman pairs, they never changed this year outside I
mean, he kept the same dbut there was line juggling every night.
It's not like they weren't trying todo something to get this thing fixed.
No, And that's and that's whatyou look at. You're trying, you're
trying to find this spark, right, That's what's what coaches do, and
and and as players, you know, these guys care. I mean,

(19:52):
everybody cares. There's so much investedin this that you know, when things
aren't going well, you have thetendency just being the person you are,
or are you putting more pressure onyourself to try and fix it, to
try and do it right. Andif that goes well, great, If
it doesn't, then it adds moreburden to you. And we just never
seem to be able to find it. I thought we were finding it on

(20:12):
that stretch of eleven zero and two, you know, I thought the game
in Buffalo Columbus saysaid, Okay,we're not playing perfect, but we're we
seem to have that spark. Andthen we lost Maddie and Vince done in
the Columbus game and people don't knowabout we were dealing with some kind of
virus. It was we had liketen guys if you go back and look
at our lineup in Pittsburgh, wehad guys out with injury, guys out

(20:33):
because of the virus. And Ithink even Larsam managed two or maybe three
just before I had to pull himselfout of the game. And then you
know, we lose the next Ithink it was six or so in a
row, and it's that's not somethingwe're going to sit there publicly say,
well, you know, we're wegot a virus, we're banged up,
we can't do it. We're stilltrying to win. We're still trying to
do it. But stuff happens overthe course of the season. We have

(20:53):
to just do a better job nextyear when stuff happens of stopping the bleeding
quicker and not having it dragon tobe a six game stretch er an eight
game stretch. Ron Francis for afew more moments on the good side of
things. Wow, that goaltending wasmassively not just good, but consistent.
That's what you're looking for, isconsistency. There's a couple teams in the
NHL Playoffs over the last forty eighthours that would love to have either one

(21:17):
of your guys right now and probablybe thinking a lot different about how their
series is going to progress. JustJoey Decord, I'll let you speak on
him. I just fun. Storygoalways developed sometimes later, you know,
heck, sometimes they come out ofnowhere like Aiden Hill did or whatever it
is. But watching that guy thisyear, boy, he competes. Guys
seem to love him. I mean, you've probably played with guys like that
that you just you want to playfor him, You want to play in

(21:37):
front of him, and he feelslike one of those guys. Well,
you know, I think it's adefense when he handles the buck so well,
that makes your job of the lazier. So you like that. Yeah,
I know, And you know thisis the guy that's put his time
in. He's playing. The minershad success when we were trying to sign
him last summer. You know,I think he had some hesitation because he
wasn't sure. And I said,Joey this, I'm giving you my word.

(21:57):
You're going to be in our lineup. You're going to get a
chance to play. I said,most likely, you'll play thirty games at
a minimum, and we'll go fromthere. He ended up playing fifty.
He played really well. You know, I said to him in the exit
meeting, well did I lie toyou last summer? He said no,
Yeah, no, I said,well, I said, that's important to
me that I didn't lie, soI want to make sure we get that
clear. But no, it wasgreat. You know, when Griby went

(22:19):
down, he stepped up and probablyexceeded expectations during that stretch. But really,
if you look at both those guysfrom January first to the end of
the year, they were both good. They gave us a chance every night.
We just couldn't give them the goalsupport that they needed to have a
more successful record. But based onhow they both played, based on how
the d played in front of them, and the fact that we were ninth

(22:41):
of the league goals against with sixof those seven defensemen coming back, for
sure, you know it was It'sgood to see and it lets us sleep
better at night knowing we have thatpart of it fixed and now we have
to go fix the other part.And out front, well, it feels
like successful teams now, I mean, I'm not it was gonna be Boston
go back and forth, right,you're not going to like Boston go back
and forth. We'll see if theytruly do that in the playoffs. But

(23:02):
it was Swim and Olmark. Butlike, you have two guys that can
play thirty five forty games and youdon't have to worry about that, right,
Yeah, I know, And Ithink that's the days of one guy
playing you know, seventy games andthe other guy just chipping in here.
I don't think they're there anymore.I think you need two guys, and
I think they need to play,you know, in the forties probably each
So having two guys that have playedas well as they've played this year,
as I said, that's a that'sa good thing to have here as we

(23:25):
move forward. Before I let yougo, young guys coming in. We
saw Shane Wright boy playing with Everlyand Schwartz. Not only you look like
he fit. He looked like anupper echelon NHL player. He's playing in
the Calder Cup playoffs right now.But I'm sure your expectations for him to
be here next year. Could hestep in and be a second line center
for you next year full time?He could? You know, I hate

(23:47):
putting that kind of pressure again.We forget this kid's twenty years old.
Yeah, right, and the NationalHockey League he will do. Forget like
he should have played juniors this year. I could have played in the juniors
this year. He played in theAmerican Hockey League, which is the next
best league behind the end, andhe had twenty two goals and twenty five
assists forty seven points in fifty ninegames. That's pretty impressive for a young
kid to do that. And yousaw it. I mean, came up

(24:10):
early in the year, game wasokay. Came up at the end of
the year, his game was muchbetter. His development, he's having fun
playing the game, he's enjoying wherehe is. We think he's got a
bright future with us in the Crack. And he's not the only one.
We feel. We've got a lotof really, really good pieces. But
again, just like the progression ofthe progression of the team is not linear,

(24:30):
it's not gonna be linear for thesekids. They're gonna come in and
they're gonna have tough stretches. Wesaw it this year with Maddie. We
just have to make sure that we'rethere to help them and support them and
help them continue to grow and becauseonce they get there, and a lot
of these kids get there, they'regonna be really interesting pieces and players for
the fans of the Seattle Cracking towatch for a long time. And you've
signed a lot of draft picks,and we get for folks don't know you

(24:51):
just because you draft a player inthe NHL doesn't mean you get signed.
You get three year basically window tosign these guys. But you've signed a
bunch of your guys a lot oftimes. I think you have talked about
this before. A lot of timesguys will get drafted, bestially junior kids,
and they go back and they kindof regress a little bit. I
don't know, want to say it'scomfortable, but they relax. Your guys
did the opposite. I mean,you've got scoring champions, scoring leaders all
over the place. You got tofeel really good about what you got coming

(25:11):
up here, even if they're ayear or two away. Yeah. No.
And the difference in the NHL iswe draft him so young. There's
it takes time to get them tothe NHL, and and they're not twenty
two to twenty three when they're drafted. And you know, to look back
at what some of our guys havedone. Yoga Fergus Focus won the Western
Hockey League scoring. He's having agreat playoffs. David go Yette won the
entire league scoring. Carson ray Croffwe just signed yesterday, you know,

(25:34):
was second in the league in goalscoring. You look overseas and Coco is
having an incredible year the goaltender andwon two rounds in the playoffs and in
the third round. Janni Neman Brooka record that stood for over forty years
in Finland for the most goals byan under twenty year old player in the
men's league, the top league inFinland. He scored twenty six. He's

(25:55):
now in Coachelli. He's played fourgames. He's got two goals. In
the four games, I think hehad twelve shot I saw that. Yeah,
crazy, uh you know, Mullagard, we don't talk about. This
is another guy that's playing in themen's league, the top league in Sweden,
playing in a number two center position, going both ways. And I
know I'm forgetting names, but wehave so many good pieces that are coming.
But we have to fix what wehave here now and and and then

(26:18):
the challenge is going to be incorporatingthese young kids with the players we have
uh as, so as we progressand these guys get into the league,
because you know uh as as.Jeff Tamplini, and my director of play
development said it was he was watchingpractice last week and it was Winterton and
and Newman and and right on theline. He said, they're so big,
and they're so fast, and they'reso skilled. It's it's great to
see that we have these pieces coming, but it is going to take time

(26:41):
to to have them get in theNHL and have success. So in the
meantime, we got to fix whatwe got here. And uh and I'll
wrap that up with that. Imean, we're not gonna sit here next
year, are we. We're gonnabe We're gonna be talking about a playoff
game somewhere. This this is notan ownership group. This is not a
GM that is accepting this. AndI know you give all the tool this
is. This is a place thatas the tools to operate you. I
know I have the ability with thisownership group to go do what you need

(27:03):
to do. So we're not gonnabe here next year, are we?
No? Well, if we're here, we're talking about our team in the
playoffs. Hopefully That's what I'd like. I mean, I didn't move myself
and my family all the way acrossthe country not to not to win and
be successful. My goal here isto build an extremely successful franchise for our
ownership, for our fans, forthe city of Seattle. And that's what
we're going to continue to work tomake it right. I really appreciate coming

(27:26):
on spending some time with us inthe Crack and fans. Today, we'll
talk. We got a draft ina little over a month. We'll talk
to you before then, and probablyduring that time as well. But thanks
Ron, Thanks ian As always appreciateit. That's Ron Francis. Come back
with more. Nine three point threeKJFM. Now back to the Forest Show,
brought to you by Snow call meCasino back at the thirty two Bar

(27:49):
and Grille. Thank you. Herehere, let's just jump off for a
second. I'm gonna we're gonna we'redoing something on the fly here, my
friend Curtis kret on the fly.We can never have enough Curtis scraft treats.
Can we check Jack? Hey?There is I'm reading. I'm reading
Curtis Krabtree's headline flocks of thirteen Seattleon the old ex Twitter page. Ron
Francis, future of Dave Hackstall,cl Crack and coaching staff under evaluation.

(28:14):
That's why you're the wordsmith, sir, That's why you're That's what I think.
That's well well said. I thinkthat's the best way to put it.
Our conversation just now with Ron.I came. I came with the
same thing. I think if Iwas a betting man. I'm setting the
odds right now. I don't thinkhacks back. I don't, but that's
yeah, I don't. I don'tthink he's back. But would you take

(28:36):
out of what you guys were ina different media session with him today,
would you take out of it?Uh that that's a very real possibility.
I mean, simply by the factthat last year they did their end of
season availabilities together and I think thatthey probably knew that that question was going
to be asked of Francis today.Ergo, it's not going to be comfortable
to have Dave sitting there right nextto him for I'm reasons. Yeah,

(29:00):
And I mean, look, Ithought there was a chance that they were
gonna let Dave go after the fiveto one loss to Montreal here that was
the last game of that eight gamelosing streak in March, and it felt
like that was about as low asthey've been. And I'm still kind of
thinking. I was a little bitsurprised as they didn't do it this weekend

(29:22):
because we're kind of used to theBaseball NFL kind of like and you make
the move. I asked to getit done, So I asked him about
that he said, Yeah, inthe NHL, you just you know,
there's a lot of different meetings andevaluations. They get their their analytics department
involved. I think owner he mentionedownerships involved, you know that, whether
it be Todd or Samantha Hallwell,whoever it is, there's a lot of

(29:42):
I think there's a lot of differentpeople involved more so in this. And
I don't think this organization is unique. I just think in hockey there's a
lot more involved with it in termsof other levels of management, et cetera.
Whereas in the NFL, GM orowner decides boom and it's such the
NFL. So, I mean,and it's seventeen weeks, it's week to
week. You knew they knew whenthey got on the plane. Bert Cole

(30:03):
knew when he got in the planein Arizona they were getting rid of Pete.
They knew it. Yeah. Ithink that's probably fair. Yeah,
and here they were going, they'regoing to do their due diligence, especially
an organization it leans as heavily intothe analytics as they do, So it'd
be interesting. Yeah, it'd bevery interesting to see what happens with the
next couple of weeks. I justor shorter. Yeah, I mean it's

(30:25):
it's it's a very different league thanthe NFL is in a number of ways,
and yeah, that's where we haveour most obviously kind of tactile knowledge
of knowing how things work. ButDave Haxell is now the sixth longest tenured
head coach. It's been three yearsand he's the sixth longest tenured head coach
after Don Gernado got fired by Buffalolast week. So it's a it's a

(30:48):
league that turns and burns head coachespretty quick. Yeah, they don't mess
around and like messages can get stale, and hey, to Vince Dunt's credit,
he said that the coaching staff didn'tlose them the other day, that
they, you know, felt likethe message was getting through all year long.
They just didn't play well enough onall of those sorts of things.
But it's also tough to not lookat the way that they've played this year,
the way that they came out ofthe gate, losing their first three
games one four and one, two, five and two to start the losing

(31:11):
streak in November. However, manytimes we heard players and coaches this year
say that, you know, wedidn't we didn't have a full sixty minute
effort. All of those things kindof to me reflect on the ability of
either the players or the coaching staffsto get the right motivation. And that's
what I wouldn't expect Vince to sayanying different because the coaches may be back,
so you don't want to say that, but and so not to But

(31:33):
no, you're right. The otherthing is, in this league, coaching
doesn't matter in this sense. Sometimesthe message gets stale quicker in this league,
I think the other leagues, outof professional leagues, NFL, et
cetera, it also matters. NewYork Islanders Patrick Watt playoff team made the
change this season. Edmonton Oilers werethe worst team in the Western Conference not
named San Jose and Chicago for awhile coaching change. Look at where they

(31:56):
are right now. Both of thoseteams have made pretty significant strength since the
coaching. Now. Edmonton I thinkwas probably gonna get there regardless of the
coach at some point, but it'sstill obvious that it happened once they did
make that. And the best exampleof all, even though it happened in
the offseason, well, it happenedmiddle of the season last year. They
turned it up and obviously have carriedit over this year's Vancouver Up North with
Rick Talckett. So Nashville speaking ofNashville situation that could be very similar to

(32:19):
this one. They made the changelast year going from John Hines Andrew Burnett,
and they did that, and theydid that in June, and that's
what That's what Ron Francis said.We'll touch on a little bit more if
you missed it at one of theirdaily power play real quick before I let
you go. It's Draft week.I know you're just all over that.
Every single trade rumor, every singlemock. Which league are we talking about?
Surf exactly, all got there,all joking asides. We'll see you

(32:43):
on Thursday and Friday and Saturday outthere, all joking aside. Seahawks sit
there at sixteen. If you werea betting man, if you had to
put if you had to put themoney on the line right now, did
they pick at sixteen or move down? I think they pick do you Okay,
I'm gonna say it's if one ofthe line is because they can't get
a partner, or because there's alineman or somebody that I think if you

(33:04):
have one of the linemen available that'sgonna potentially be there. I think you
have might have offense or defensive well, a couple in particularly either Foutanu or
a lot too. I think aretwo guys that are very obvious guys that
could help this team. So thinka Lot two hasn't been talked about a
lot here, you know, likelike everyone's but pretty damn no, I
know, But I mean I thinkwith with with with lat two, it's
we're talking a lot about the interior, the defensive line as opposed to an

(33:28):
edge rusher. That's like the conversation. Uh. And obviously with the offensive
line, the interior and the uberfocus here with Fatanu and Panics, everyone's
kind of going through that. Doyou think they'll take a quarterback in the
first round if one of those guysis there, if they have Panix,
McCarthy or Nicks is there. I'llanswer it this way. I don't think
them trading for Sam Howell precludes themfrom doing so. Does it make it
less likely you take a first roundquarterback? I don't think so. I

(33:50):
really don't think the first round quarterback. I really don't think how will factor
is into it. Okay, Itruly don't because look at what you traded
form. If they take a firstround quarterback, then we're gonna know who
was pulling this rings the last fourteenyears potentially. Right, Yeah, well,
I think I mean that's it's it'sit's. I mean the reason I
say I don't think it matters isthis, think of what you traded for
him wasn't all that much that ifyou do draft one, you can trade

(34:12):
him for the exact same thing tosomebody else and you haven't lost this.
Yeah, or you just keep threeall right? All right? Uh Fox
thirteen Seattle dot Com. Curtis isactually be back with us tomorrow. We're
gonna do a little round table andright around the crack and season with Curtis,
Alison Bullard Ballard from UH, DavyJones Locker, R. J Eskinos
from Emerald City Hockey, and DarrenBrown from Sound of Hockey. We're gonna

(34:35):
go around the horn tomorrow, spendsome time kind of deep diving into this.
Who knows, maybe we'll have newsby then. I wouldn't be surprised
if we have news break during thatthing. To be honest, we'll see,
we'll find out. But Curtis thanyou can go check out Curtis's work.
He did a whole ride up todayon Francis and the press conference out
here Fox thirteen, Cil dot com. We'll come back. We're gonna mollywop.
Uh. This may have a differenttenor than we've had since opening day?

(34:57):
Andrews, Are you ready for aglass full positive mollywop? I don't
know if I can handle it.Is the audience ready for a glass half
full positive? Mollywop? Is anybodyready for that? A Nathan Bishop in
a good mood. We'll find outnext. No from the Star Rennels Sports
to us your ninety three point threeKJR FM sports headlines. Your one o'clock

(35:21):
sports headlines are brought to you bya venue Kings dot com. You have
a new keyword to enter on ninethree three KJR dot com. That keyword
is fun because it's fun to wina thousand bucks. And that's what you
could do if you entered that keywordon nine three three KJR dot com.
Your Seattle Mariners take two or threefrom the Colorado Rockies in Colorado to win

(35:42):
five of their last six. Asyou just heard on the show, Ron
Francis says, Dave Haxtell's job statusis under evaluation. Matt Ryan officially retires
from the NFL after fifteen seasons,and Zach Wilson has been traded to the
Never Broncos for a late round pickswap. According to our own Ian Rappo,
shohe A Tani now holds the recordfor the most home runs by a Japanese

(36:04):
born player. And in the NBA, Calves, Wolves, Knicks, Nuggets,
Celtics, Clippers, Bucks, andthunder all take game one of their
series over the weekend. The gametwo's start tonight. And in the NHL,
the Caines Bruins, Panthers, Rangers, Jets, Canucks all win game
one of their series. The Starsversus Golden Knights Game one will be tonight,
and the Kings versus Oilers Game onewill be tonight. And now the

(36:29):
moment you have all been waiting for, let's mollywop. It's Monday, then
that means one thing. It's timeto mollywop uncensored, unscripted and filled with
the passion that all Mariners fans canrelate to, and brought to you by
the company that's all about Seattle Sports, simply Seattle. Visit simply Seattle dot

(36:51):
Com for the best Mariners gear.Now with the Mollywop Boys, Nathan Bishop
from Doman Bedlam and Chris Crawford withmy oh why here's Ian Fernettes. All
right, here we go, timeto Molly wopp on a Monday, all
things Murners, the week in review, the week ahead. Here we go,
joined by Nathan Bishop and the guyTaylor Swift was actually writing about we'd

(37:15):
get to him in a seconds.For some reason, I don't quite think
that's true, but we'll confirm ina moment with all our various sources.
MS go five and one, gentlemen. We were talking about it last week.
A five and one week was somethingthat we were hoping for, thinking
was very possible. And lo andbehold, they got there in a strange

(37:37):
way. Circumstances weird yesterday for sure, but they do it. They're five
hundred again. All is right inmarriorland. Nathan Bishop, fire away,
you know, mission accomplished. Wetalked last week, we wanted them to
go five and one. It wouldhave been great to go six and zero.
They definitely did not deserve to winthat early game yesterday. They deserve
to lose it. Twice and theyonly lost it once, so that's fine.

(38:00):
Story of the week for me isthe same story. When the Seattle
Mariners are playing well, they're startingpitching carried them the entire week. I
just did some basic math here backin Napkin Math to keep it simple.
I know this is but a humbleradio show. We don't going to get
too complicated, but here's the averagestart for a Seattle Mariner starter of the
past week. It is six inningsof three hit, one run, seven

(38:22):
strikeout, one walk baseball. Ifthey keep doing that, they're gonna win
a lot of baseball games. Isaw the team itself tweeted out that they
have allowed eighteen runs in their lastten games, which is just absurd.
Slightly less absurd, I guess isthat they've only managed to go seven to
three while averaging allowing fewer than tworuns per game during that stretch. We

(38:44):
can talk more about that, butthere was also some good stuff on the
offense this week, I thought too, So overall, you know, not
only did the team play better,but you guys, the AO West may
be a very weird division this year, so it's gonna be really interesting to
watch. This week is gonna beso awesome with a huge series in Texas
and then against Arizona. I thinkthe next month is going to tell us
a whole lot about this baseball team, and I'm getting really excited about it.

(39:06):
Yeah, the Mariners are off today. They start to gain a series
against the defending champs Texas Rangers,who are a half game ahead of the
five hundred Seattle Mariners. The guyTaylor Swift was actually writing about, can
you confirm what do you have secondsource for us? No? Just me
and what what we've been through.And I'm sorry, Tata. I will
do a better job going forward,but it led us some great art.

(39:28):
Don't feel bad by the way.I was going to call myself the guy
who designed the Denver Broncos new uniforms, but I don't even want to be
that guy. That's the worst uniformdesign I have seen. The rip off
of the Seattle Seed Dragons, That'sbasically what it is. They just got
exitt you know what, Leave itto the Broncos to to do something stupid.
Uh. They tried to correct awrong earlier this year with the trade,

(39:50):
but they just came back in withthe Broncos again. Chris Crawford.
Myle y, you broke down allthese games throughout the week. I'm not
sure if you did too straight yesterdayor not, but you broke down a
five in one week. That's kindof a little more fun than normal.
Oh my gosh, way more fun. I actually was really impressed with what
I saw from the offense, particularlythe approach at the plate, like they

(40:10):
drew so many walks, And Iknow walks aren't the most exciting thing in
the world. This offense needs itbecause it's not a team that is built
to have a bunch of guys hittwo eighty three hundred. It is a
team that has built on guys whoare going to work counts and get on
base and turn some solo homers intosome two run homers into some three run
homers. Now, it's also worthpointing out that Colorado, the fact that

(40:32):
the Rockies might not be the worstteam in baseball is an absolute embarrassment for
Major League Baseball. The Chicago WhiteSox, the Colorado Rockies, the Oakland
Athletics, shame on you. Thefact that one of you isn't the worst
team in baseball is really really pathetic. But the Mariners took advantage of it,
and what we saw last year wasthe Seattle Mariners did a really good

(40:52):
job of beating the crap out ofbad teams. Let's see how they play
against a good team, who Texas. It's been kind of mediocre to begin
the season. I still think itis a vast improvement over what they were
playing last week, like going froman high A team to an actual major
league baseball team. But I wasimpressed with all facets of the game.
And honestly, it's a little disappointingthey didn't go six and oh they should

(41:15):
have won that first game on Saturday, And I hope it's not one that
bites him in the took us alittle bit. But you'll take a five
in one week, and it's niceto see the Seattle Mariners look like a
very competent baseball team. As aleak, Chris, let me let me
stay with you for a second.Maybe, Okay, the fifty four percent
is the biggest punchline for the organization. Control the zone is in the top

(41:36):
five. Though it's a Hall offame, it's a hall of fame.
Contact comment or quote or phrase anduse control the zone. But starting Monday,
last Monday against Cincinnati. I meanwhen they they drew more walks i
think in the first inning than theirpitcher than the Mariner pitching staff gave up
all week, but they did controlthe zone, and Nathan touched it on
that how important is it for thisoffense to show that patience against Listen,

(41:59):
you're gonna see subpart pitching when yousee subpart teams. Right, Yeah,
absolutely, And I think the bigthing that I saw last week, and
I'm not terribly surprised by it,was they didn't press. They didn't take
those struggles that they had over theseries into that week. They still were
willing to be patient and it certainlyhelped that. Frankie Montoss was god awful
in that first outing, but hemight have been the thing that kind of

(42:22):
set the fire going forward because theykind of, I think, realized,
hey, these free passes can help. These help not only just our base
percentage, they are very big forhelping teams win baseball games. The fact
that they were willing to draw somany walks even while being a team that
was struggling to score runs and strugglingto score runs was quite the understatement.

(42:42):
But if you take away their strugglesof that game against cal Quantrell on Saturday,
and look, they had plenty ofbase runners in that game too,
they just couldn't come up with thebig hit. They looked like a very
strong offense one through nine, anda lot of that has to do with
the fact that they weren't swinging itpitches outside of the strike zone. They
were fouling off tough two strike pitches. If they can do that going forward,

(43:05):
they're going to be good offensive resultsgoing forward. I just have a
hard time. I don't disagree withanything that Chris just said. The offense
is designed to work through walks andhome runs. We've mentioned that kind of
regularly here. They're still struggling inhome runs their twentieth in the league there,
but I think they're now fifth inthe league and walk rate, which
is right around where they need tobe to be an effective offense. I
just need for me personally, guys, I need to see it more.

(43:28):
And I just I watched most ofthe games this week, maybe more than
I normally do in a week,given family and work obligations, and I
saw a ton of below average armspitching against them, throwing non competitive balls,
and that's not dismissing their good patience, the good things that Chris just
said. I just need to seeit more against pitchers who are throwing quality

(43:49):
balls, balls just off the plate, balls with run that start on the
strike zone and then run off.They've got a couple guys that have done
a good job spinning on those,but by and large, Frankie Manto is
a great example. I think hecame out and walked three guys in the
first inning and then went three tozero to to Jorge Polanco and then just
groove the fattest three to one fastballyou could possibly imagine. I mean,
good, that's great. That's exactlywhat you should do against that level of

(44:10):
pitching and Colorado that's the least impressivepitching environment and arm set that they will
face all year. So they didwhat they should have done. Really encouraged
by it. And to your pointIan about I think it was first control
the zone, and then it waslike explode the zone, and now it's
dominate the zone. It's different everysingle year. They're very good at riffing

(44:31):
off of that. Not only arethey fifth and walk rate, the Marinith
starting pitchers have the lowest walk rateallowed by a huge margin in Major League
Baseball. The difference between them andthe second place Baltimore Orioles is larger than
the difference between second place Baltimore andtwelfth place Detroit. They are walking so

(44:51):
few batters as starting pitchers and asa rotation, and it is the key
to their success, I think onboth sides of the ball. As Chris
already said, it's David Bishop,Chris Crawford, It's malliwap Monday, brought
to you by Simply Seattle. Let'sgive a shout out to simply Seattle Simply
Seattle dot com. I got abig sale going on right now, twenty
five percent off. Also, ofcourse, when you get a checkout,
use our mulliwop fifteen for your discountcode Malliwop fifteen checkout discount code when you

(45:13):
check out with our good friends atsimply Seattle Simply Seattle dot com. We'll
get to the al West in thesecond. NATO's stay with you is starting
pitching pretty good, pretty good weekend. I mean, nice nice little snow
out Kevin Shockey, what's going onin your town on Friday? And then
the snow on the field on hotSaturday. They cleared it off and got

(45:36):
a game in, and then thedouble header yesterday was played in sixty degree
weather. What the hell put adome on your damn stadium course field?
Anyway, that aside, the glasshalf full is and we did this on
as a topic last week. Noone's ever done that in sports radio before.
Glass half full, glass half empty. I may even do a mount
rushmore so, no if I everdo that, you guys. Anyway,

(45:57):
the glass half full was Yeah,that pitching staff has a hole was great.
I will say I was a weebit concerned to see the postgame comments
from George Kirby, who was theonly guy not to get a quality started
in the last ten outings. Hewent five with arm soreness. Why is
it every time I see that,Nathan, I just I chill goes down
my spine and I think of,you know, shades of Robbie Ray last

(46:21):
year or something. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's hugely concerning for multiple reasons.
One, this is, as wejust talked about for I think ten
minutes, the rotation is the numberone strength of this team. We just
said that they've allowed fewer than tworuns per game for the last ten and
still managed to lose three, whichreally goes to show you that they really
can't afford any sort of letup,either in health or performance from that starting

(46:45):
rotation, combined with the fact thatI don't know, I know, sometimes
our fans are fairly focused on thelocal team. If you take a broader
view of Major League Baseball, thereare pitchers falling down just left and right,
and the Seattle Mariners have been Theyhad Robbie Ray, Mark Hooginzalez go
down last year, but by andlarge have been exceptionally fortunate, and probably

(47:06):
to some extent, there is somecredit due to whatever their pitching program is
doing to help keep these guys healthy. So let's not just say it's all
luck. There probably is something tothat. However, one of these guys
going down has a huge cascade effect, because, as Chris has talked about
before, the depth in starting pitchingin the miners right now is just not
where it has been. Because they'vegraduated three top shelf starting pitchers in the

(47:29):
last three years. That'll tend tothin out your minor league rotation. So
hard to overstate how badly they needa guy like George Kirby to stay healthy
It's kind of the lynchpin of thewhole season in my opinion. Good news
though Chris Crawford is a soreness forKirby, But look who bounces back.
How about Emerson Hancock? Huh?I mean, you're the prospect guy woves
down in the miners right now.He may be there for a while.

(47:51):
Yeah. I was really impressed withwhat I saw from Hancock, especially after
such a crappy first inning, becauseyou know, you lose that game two
to one because you just can't geta clutch hit, and then Andrey Munoz
gives up a little too much contactand then you immediately go down to nothing
and you kind of have a littlebit of a uh oh, are they
gonna lose this series to this minorleague baseball team? And no Hancock shoved

(48:14):
for the rest of the game.I was really impressed. His command was
better than it's been probably all year, which was great to see. Hit
his spots pitches looked the you know, there's no real swing and miss pitch
that is going to dominate, butthere are just enough good secondary pitches and
good enough command for him to bea fine fifth starter. And it's very

(48:34):
encouraging that Wu's being getting ready aswell. You know that's gonna be an
interesting decision. There's definitely going tobe Hancock's gonna have to pitch really well
to hold off WU. But Idon't think the Mariners would hate if they
could hold off WU and maybe limithis innings as well as a guy who
you know, set a career highas such an understatement last year. To
have that depth, to have alegitimate sixth starter, which the Seattle Mariners

(48:57):
did not have last year. Tohave an actual a legitimate six starter,
which I think you have in Hancock, is a very positive development. Who
straight series wins for the Mariner's ballingWet Monday brought to you by Simply seattlesimply
sail dot com. That's Chris CrawfordNathan Bishop. I in ferness with you,
okay, Chris, We'll stay withbecause you're my hockey guy and you
were mad at me last night whenI told you who to root for and
just just follow it. Fall along, fella. I'll follow you with the

(49:20):
baseball. You followed me along withthe hockey, all right. Just help
me out here, all right.You know we're all we are all Canucks.
That's what we are. I knowthat's not a popular thing here.
I want give me the plus minusesfor the week offensively, you know,
because I was just looking at theplus minuses for our conversation here. It's
cracking community ice plecks today. Plusminus is It's an old stat that some
people hate in hockey, but I'lljust use it for ours. Who are

(49:42):
the pluses last week? Who gotpluses on the offensive side, and who
are still minuses after two straight serieswins. Well, I think Julio's got
to be in the positives. Imean, he is absolutely scorched in the
baseball right now. Now. Iwant to see that ball been over the
dang fence, and I think thatmight be getting in his head a little
bit. He actually hit a coupleof ball over this weekend that I thought
for sure we're gonna get out.But the ball just isn't weirdly traveling in

(50:06):
course field over that week. Musthave something to do with the air.
He looked great. Cal Riley isa gosh dang star and we don't talk
about him enough as a star.What a performance this guy has put on.
Like he got off to a littlebit of a slow scuffle. Some
bad batted ball luck and maybe acouple of pitches that he missed in the
middle of his zone. He's onan absolute tear and we don't talk enough

(50:28):
about him being an actual star orHey, Polanco has looked really good with
his approach at the plate. Hitsaren't necessarily following, but I think he
had like three straight games with twowalks. He loved to see something like
that. I want to see MitchGarver get going. If we're talking about
negatives, Mitch Garver's got to bebetter. And I like the fact that
the Mariners have been able to drophim to the seventh spot in the lineup,

(50:49):
and it hasn't really been that noticeable. If you had told me that
at the beginning of the year thatMitch Garver was going to be so bad
they're moving him to that seventh spot, I would be pretty concerned by what's
going on. Need to see himget going a little bit. Ty France,
you know, the exit velocity looksreally good. I just have not
been impressed with what I've seen fromTy France. Offensively. Obviously, the
difference is he makes up so muchwith his unbelievable base running. His speed

(51:14):
is just something that you have tobe hold. I think ty France might
be like a first down defensive tackleof a baseball player, is what type
of France? If it's second andsix, you can't risk havin ty France
on the field, but he isgoing to get you some of those bloopers

(51:35):
to drop in, and the exitvelocities have been really good. According to
Vant, he has not passed theeye test for me. But if those
two guys are your negatives and aren'tthat bad, you're having a pretty darn
good little week. Nathan Offensively,I want to add anything to that,
well, I just want to kindof add to the Mitch Garver concern there

(51:55):
because I completely agree with cal Rawly. I think that this hopefully is the
year that he finally gets his glowup as one of the very best catchers
in Major League Baseball on a nationallevel, because he really deserves to have
that. He's been nothing but agreat major league catcher since he got here.
But it is very concerning to methat a guy who they've had to
basically run into the ground the lasttwo years in playing time, even though

(52:15):
it was just as a designated hitter, was forced to play both games in
a doubleheader, because your bright,shiny new everyday DH that you finally decided
is a real thing that you're goingto try to do this year for the
first time in five years, isso bad that you can't even play him
as a DH in Colorado. SoMitch Garver needs to get it going.
JP Crawford had a huge triple lastnight, and he has basically had three

(52:37):
big hits all year, two homeruns and a basis clearing triple, and
I think those are the only threeballs he's hit in the air all year.
Everything else has been a ground balltowards the right side. He needs
to get it going because he isthe captain of this team in a lot
of ways, the heartbeat of theroster. I am encouraged with Julio.
I'd sure love to see Julio turningon the ball with some authority a little
bit more. I can see thathe's slowly trying to put that together.

(53:00):
As Chris said many times in thepast, not worried about him in the
slightest. He is right now witha ninety WRC plus, which is ten
percent below league gabage on pace forlike a four win season, and so
like he's so good at baseball thateven when he's kind of scuffling around and
not hitting for power, he's oneof the best outfielders in the American League.
So people need to be very chillout on Julio because he's doing fine

(53:22):
as far as other half glass fullof guys and minus is. You know,
I feel like I'm probably the oddman out here. I think he's
a good player. I think hehelps his team. I just don't think
Andres Munos is the guy for thehigh leverage stuff for a little while.
For me, he's just Brian Staneckhas looked so good. And when they
get Matt Brash back and if theyget Gregory's Antos back healthy, I just

(53:44):
it just doesn't It's the command thereis just very scary. It feels like
a big roll of the dice forme with Andres Munos. And I know
that he's a great reliever, Iknow what the numbers say. It just
he scares the crap out of meevery time he takes the mount. I'm
sorry, Chrisiers, I got itreal quick. Just jump in here.
Like you think Ryan Stani's look good, I think Ryan Stanick has looked awful.

(54:07):
Like Ryan Stanick should have had awalk off home ery yesterday. That
was the right call, but itshould have at least been a double.
I have not been impressed with RyanStanik at all. I think I reach
over it to the home run,right, I mean, like like if
he doesn't touch the wats a homerun because Moore didn't have a shot at
it. So yeah, no,absolutely not. It was the right call
by definition, but it was anextremely fortunate call for the Seattle Yes,

(54:30):
that absolutely, but I have notbeen impressed with Stannick. I think that's
probably the biggest concern that I haveright now, is that, you know,
Munyos didn't look great, but I'mstill have to use Ryan Uh Andre
Munyos in those situations. And look, he just cut a little bit too
much of the plate in a coupleof uh pitches that they were aggressive and

(54:50):
the zombie run scores and YadA,YadA. I still think Andre Munyos has
looked like the best reliever for theSeattle Mariners. I want to see more
consistent swing and miss to be sure. I thought his outing last Friday was
the best that we've seen from him. Yeah, but I can't put Ryan
Stanick in those situations. Man,I just can't put it at least over
Andrew Munyos, because while the erais fine, I think the stuff in
command has looked well below average.Oh. I like a little disagreement from

(55:16):
the Malliwap guys. I like that. I like a little bickering eyes And
we should just tell you. Wepre tape Malliwap Mondays on zoom. And
my favorite part of that, ifyou were listening carefully, there was like
Nate when he when he started goingafter the Munyos versus Stantic debate. The
look on Chris's face was priceless.What which is good? I like it?

(55:39):
We like it all right. Wegot part two of Malliwap Monday coming
up in a second. We'll checkin with the boys looking ahead. The
Al West is awful at least sofar. And that's good. That's really
good. Yeah, Because I don'tknow about you, Andrews. I'd like
to see a division win. Idon't care if the wild card. Listen,
just get to the playoffs. Weall we all know, right,

(56:00):
but how nice would it be forhome field advantage? You know, sitting
out here at the thirty two Barand Grill today here at the kCi with
the crack and even last year withthem they you know, both series.
They started on the road. I'mwatching NHL playoffs this week, and you
start on the road. Yeah,our bait. You know. They were
talking a vot coouver talking about allthey haven't had a playoff home playoff game

(56:22):
in nine years. We've had onein the last twenty two. Didn't all
of these home teams win yesterday too, the first Yeah, we've had one.
We've had one home playoff game sincetwo thousand and one in Seattle for
Baseball one. The Seahawks haven't hada real true home playoff game since two
thousand and eighteen, right, Ibelieve it was twenty eighteen. Yes,

(56:42):
yeah, because they because the twentytwenty one people bring that up. That
doesn't count as a fans, Noone is there, Yeah, doesn't count.
So let's get let's win the ALWest, let's see some homeboy.
And you could talk about the tangiblelike re outcomes to that, like you
say homefield advantage and getting the homeplayoff games and maybe missing the wild card
round, But how about the sting, like going through the summer with some
momentum and like being a few gamesup on the bed and that's where they

(57:05):
are right now. So we comeback, we'll talk about that. We'll
talk about the situation with with theAle West. What's coming up this week?
Fun series? Man, I'm geeked. I want to I'm like,
I wasn't geeked last week. I'llbe honest with you, I didn't care.
I was like, Okay, whatever, you're gonna Cincinnati. Okay,
you swept him. Awesome, that'sfun. Yeah, took care of business
in Colorado. Now you have Nowyou have an April series. It means

(57:27):
something starting tomorrow, we'll talk aboutthat. The American League West. How
what a fun week that's gonna bealso big thanks to Simply Seattle simply Seattle
dot com. By the way,the Chuck Knox hats are back. Oh
have you ever seen those? Haveyou seen those? Andrews? You love?
Fan favorite for this past season.The Chuck Knox hats are an iconic
throwback that needs to be in everytwelves collection. You can check it out
at simply sale dot com. Orderthe Chuck Knox hat and use malliwop fifteen

(57:51):
at checkout for your discount. That'ssimply Seattle dot com. Malwap fifteen at
checkout for your Chuck Knox throwback hatsamong other things. All right, well,
take a break, come back wherethe Kraken Community. I expect the
thirty two bar and grill big thanksto them. More on the Wrong Francis
conversation earlier. I think we've gota special guest joining us coming up at
two o'clock that knows something about boththe NFL and the NHL. Hey there

(58:14):
you go, professional tease my friendon a Monday. You don't get that
every day yet Monday, usually Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I say my
best for you. We'll come backwith more Malliwop next. Now back to
the inf Net show brought to youby Snow call me Casino, back at
the Kraken Community ice Plex where it'sa little quiet unfortunately, huh little quiet.

(58:39):
We will continue our Mollywop Monday conversationin a second with Nate and Chris,
which we taped earlier today. Andjust in all transparency, because we
have to be transparent, right,yeah, we do. We tape those
guys via zoom on a Monday morningusually that way we can see each other,
make sure thing's good and then wehope, like hell, there's no
breaking new, but I like tobe able to see the two fellas along

(59:02):
the way. And we had agood conversation today and extended into a second
segment. One of the things thatwe were discussing coming up this week Texas
is in town or Maurners are inTexas. Rather I should say, yeah,
fun, fun times, good seriescoming up. But here we'll continue
the conversation by to my simply seattlesimplyscattle dot com, imai WAT fifteen to
check out for your discount. AndI talked to the boys Nates the first

(59:24):
voice you're gonna hear, and weasked, how bad is the American League
West? Well, that's the hugestthing. It's not just that, you
know, the team is leading thedivision after twenty three games, is one
game above five hundred in Texas.It's that the team that everybody, media,
projections, computers, analytics, everythingsaid was the dead favorite in this

(59:44):
division. The Houston Afros have completelyfallen on their face. They're seven and
sixteen. Are they going to bethat battle? You're probably not, but
my god, they've built a hugehole for themselves to dig out of,
and with basically their entire twenty twentytwo rotation. Mine is justin Verlander on
the I right now. They're goingto be hard up for pitching for some
time. This is not a teamwith a great farm system. From my

(01:00:06):
understanding, Chris would have better knowledgeof that than I would. But from
my understanding, this is not avery good farm that Houston has. They
might be in legitimate trouble at leastuntil their arms start to get healthy.
So it's just an amazing opportunity.It was last week the Mariners were six
and ten and we were talking about, you know, we talked about Scott's
service getting fired last week, andto their credit, what we said last

(01:00:27):
week was that every time they've gotteninto that kind of situation with Scott,
they have rallied and played better baseball. And that's exactly what they did this
week. And I just don't thinkit doesn't look like it's going to be
a division that requires ninety five winsto win. You know, if the
Mariners can win eighty seven games,they maybe right there in the American League
West all season long. Awesome opportunityagainst the Texas Rangers. They're going to
have the starting pitching advantage every singlegame. Don't even worry about the lineups.

(01:00:52):
Don't even think about it. Don'teven acknowledge that offense exists. Don't
compare the lineups. That's all fake. The Mariners have better starting pitching than
the Texas Rangers in every game series. It's a great opportunity for him.
Chris al West Center for the taking. I mean legitimately, I mean,
I know we're twenty three in,but it's legitimately feels like a two team
race. I mean nine to sixtyeight or seven to sixteen. What is
Houston right now? Seven to sixteen? Yeah, seven and sixteen. Yeah,

(01:01:13):
and it's like we know about bigholes. Yeah, it's hard to
come back to those. It's reallyhard to come back from it. And
look, this is not a teamthat's seven and sixteen with a run differential
of like minus two or minus three. No, it's minus twenty eight,
which is the second worst in thedivision behind the dreadful Oakland Athletics or minus
thirty seven. By the way,Chicago White Sox negative seventy one run differential

(01:01:34):
all the season. Holy crap ona cracker, there are might not be
their ear Yeah, it just youknow, they're gonna have to play a
little bit of any anybody. Yeah, I appreciate that we're not going with
only get that inside here. Youcan only get that kind of insight here
for you guys, Yeah, forfree. But the division just doesn't look
very good right now. Now.I do think Houston is better than they've
played, and it is worth pointingout that there are gonna get some arms

(01:01:55):
healthy. I would expect Houston,while it doesn't have a great farm system,
if they feel like they need togo get something, they usually go
and get something. That's something thatthey've done a very good job of in
the past, and it's worth pointingout they do have some players playing well.
Josey l. Tuobi's playing really well. Jordan Alvarez remains one of the
best offensive players in baseball. It'sjust nice that the fact that the Mariners

(01:02:19):
stinking for the first sixteen games ofthe year hasn't bit them as bad as
it could now. I still thinkTexas is the best team in this division
on paper. I think Houston andSeattle are pretty darn similar. I still
think that's true. It's not theyhaven't played like it. Houston has played
awful. They just lost a seriesagainst a very bad Washington Nationals baseball team,
but they're all very similar, andit's worth pointing out, like you

(01:02:42):
know, we're talking about it's notgoing to take ninety five wins. It
only would have taken eighty nine winsto win the division last year. So
maybe we were overrating this Al Westa little bit coming into it anyway,
but it's a great opportunity. Iwant to see them play well in this
series because it'll do a lot formy mental well being if I see set
just as good as Texas for threegames. And just want to add too,
and this is Houston's played terribly andChris just said they just lost the

(01:03:06):
series to the Nationals, who areterrible. They've also played the Yankees,
They've played Texas twice, They've playeda surprisingly fights you Royals team. They've
had a much tougher schedule to thispoint than the Mariners are. And what
we've been talking about moving forward,the Mariners are now for their next month
or so, are going to beplaying all of those teams that just gave
Houston that seven and sixteen records.So it is a huge stretch coming up
for Seattle to test their actual qualityagainst some of the better teams in the

(01:03:29):
American League. Well, how muchmore fun is baseball? To this?
Nathan Bishop, Chris Crawford want moneybrought you by Simply Seattle, Simply Seattle
dot com. Also at see Molliwapfifteen for your checkout. How much more
fun is this? Though, Nateis, as we look ahead, I
mean, we're talking about a teama half game out of first. It's
not like the old days where you'rehaving to jump in the elite frog three
other teams. There is a greatpossibility by by you know, Thursday afternoon,

(01:03:52):
heading into the weekend, when theteam returns home, they're in first
place. And I know, listen, as much as we hate what we
have been talking about the first threeweeks, how much fun will that be?
It just changes a whole vibe aroundthis town as far as baseball team's
concerned. Yeah, regardless of theirplague quality. If you can look up
at Team Mobile Park and see theMariners flag flying in first place in the
American League West in April, whenthe team typically trips all over their feet

(01:04:16):
and they did it again, it'sa huge psychological boost, I would imagine
slightly for the team, But definitelyfor me as a fan, and I
would assume for the broader fan base. I mean, we just need to
have a baseball team that feels likea division contender for the entire year.
We're just so overdue for that,all right, Chris, What do they
need to do this week? Wealways go through this at the end,
kind of take a set of goalover under for the week. Last week,

(01:04:38):
I think you guys both set fiveand one and boom, you nailed
it and nailed it. What dothey need to do this week? I
need such a tough one this week, just because they're playing a Texas team
that is good and they're playing anArizona team that is good. I need
to see them look good. Theeye test is going to matter for me
a little bit more than the results. Four and two would be delightful.
It would be wonderful to see thisteam come out of here with a winning

(01:05:00):
If they're three and three, I'mnot going to, you know what too
much. If they're two and fourand they look good, they lose a
couple of close games, I'm notgoing to go two nuts about it.
And that's the nice thing about thefact that they played so well in this
last week. You go three andthree last week, and you go two
and four this week. Now you'retalking about a pretty big hole, but
you're talking about this week. Ifthey are one game under five hundred when

(01:05:23):
we talk at this point, I'mnot going to be too disappointed even two
games under five hundred. But goingfour and two against these teams, I
will be happier than some other wordthat I'm not supposed to say. Again,
Yeah, don't don't make anders beepit up, all right? If
thought so the week coming up,Yeah, I was gonna say three and
three. I really want to echowhat Chris said. I feel like he's

(01:05:43):
just saying so many good and smartthings this week for once that I'm just
founding myself agreeing all the time.Other than Ryan Stanick. That's right.
We don't get them, all right, that's okay, But I really need
to see them look good. Thething about that six and ten record wasn't
that they were six and ten,is that they looked worse than six and
ten as they were playing. Ifthey're going to go three and two three
against quality teams, even if theygo too and four and say, you
know, one of the great playersbecause they are actually going to face some

(01:06:04):
real major League baseball players this week, as opposed to this past weekend hits
a great ninth inning home run orsomething to beat them like whatever that happens.
That's baseball. You lose games thatare tough. The other team has
good players, but they need tobe competitive, especially offensively. I need
to not see the games from thispast week immediately go away. I need
to see sustained walks. I needto see sustained quality at bats. I

(01:06:25):
need to see some quality contact thatneeds to become a regular thing as opposed
to what it was this week,which was the exception to the season thus
far. All right, Nathan work. Can we find your work? I'll
find me at Nathan Underscore h UnderscoreB. I also heard that there's a
website that's offering a fancy new subscriptiontier that I think everyone should go check
out. But I'll let Chris talkabout that. Go ahead, Chris,
go to my oy and I didsubscribe. I did create a subscription platform.

(01:06:49):
You just hit join. It's calledmyo Y Enthusiasts. Because I'm very
creative. It's four ninety nine amonth. You're going to get access to
once a week chats. We'll startthat next week. You're going to get
access to prospect rankings. You're gonnaget access to some of my MLB draft
content as well. I'd really appreciateyou joining totally understand that five bucks a
month is not for everybody, butwould really appreciate it if you do have

(01:07:11):
the meats. All right, myfriends, thank you very much. That's
Chris Crawford, Nathan Bishop, bigthanks to our friends at simply Seattle.
Simply Seattle dot com is the websitemalliwap fifteen. At check out, you
can get all the gear you're lookingfor. They've got some good throwback stuff
going on too. Right now,I should check that out. Chris is
actually wearing a that's kind of athrowback at isn't it the one you're wearing

(01:07:31):
all that My favorite sweatshirt, theKingdom sweatshirt. My wife's got one of
those. Yeah, she thinks Kingdom'sstill around. So I've got it.
But we're going to I know,you know what, nothing screams a good
time like the malt, the twodollars malt, the frozens all with the
wooden stock. Those fake ass nachosare something that I'm gonna miss for the

(01:07:53):
rest of myell. What was fakeabout them? Fella? There's nothing fake
about them. That macho cheese Ithink was made out of stuff that was
on like the periodic table, butit was still so delicious. It was
damn good. And to me,there was a hit a couple of hidden
bars along the way too that onceI turned twenty one, I found it.
There's nothing nothing screams a good timelike a whiskey, a bourbon coke
for two dollars in a in acloset and the Kingdome concourse, so good

(01:08:15):
time. Swow. We missed akid ah the glory days. Hey,
do you guys remember what happened inninety five? White a chance? I
don't know if you do. Youknow I can tell you a story there
and August twenty fourth and Miriams.We're fourteen and a half anyway, Highlights
tomorrow and roots Sports. Yeah,another segment. I can just read that
whole thing out for you. We'reall good. Thanks boys, great job.
We'll talk to you next week.Chris Crawford, make sure you go
check out my o y after everygame. He's taken tonight off because m's

(01:08:38):
are off, but back with youtomorrow. Nathan Bishop as well. We're
back with more with the k CIon ninety three point three KJRFM, Malkins
thought twenty on GOLDI flecks and theystop. It's Crosby stop. This is
the Daily power Play Deep Slot onetimer McKennon. Now iannes Son Sports Radio

(01:09:05):
ninety wait for kJ r FM.Alrighty, it's Daily power Play. Rights
you by well today the thirty twoBarn Girl. Huh, that's what we'll
say. There you go. That'sright, we're out here today, thirty
two Barn Girl. Casey, ICracking Community ice flex. Oh it's quiet.

(01:09:25):
I should say this. There werethere were players on the ice.
I got here today. I waslike, what the hell? We got
players on the ice, players onthe ace, A bunch of guys that
are staying in shape, going tothe World Championships here in the next week
or two. So outside of that, nothing hockey wise report here except for
oh a little thing called the RonFrancis end of the season media availability.
Spoke to the media and then hecame down and sat with us here in
You're Home with the Cracking nine threepoint three k r FM, and uh,

(01:09:46):
the biggest question, the one everyoneis asking about right now, is
simply this the future of the coachingstaff, and Dave paxtell now, it's
done a little differently in the NHL. Sometimes if there's a move made that's
not done right when the season anend, sometimes it takes a day or
two, a week, or threemore month, whatever it might be.
So nothing is set in stone yettoday. In fact, in his media

(01:10:09):
availability with the Beat writers and thosewho cover the team, Ron Francis basically
still we're still evaluating. And basicallythat's what he discussed with me as well.
What you're kind of telling us isno decision has been made, whether
it be Dave or the rest ofthe staff as of right now. Yeah,
And you know, I think peopleare going to read into that one
way or the other no matter whatI say. But it's you know,
I think it's it's us doing ourdue diligence on everything and trying to make

(01:10:32):
that assessment and going through all thethings that we think factor into making that
decision. Teams make changes during theseason, sometimes teams make changes right after
the season. Heck, I thinklast year Nashville let the guy go kind
of towards the end of June.So, I mean, there's always different
things that happen, you know,But in our case, this is our

(01:10:54):
process at the end of the year. We did it after year one,
we did it after year two,even though he was a finalist for coaches
here, we still we still havethose discussions and reviews and and and that's
what we're doing right now. Youknow, the beautiful thing about sports radio,
anders is this when when you cansit down and talk to somebody that's
in a decision making role like RonFrancis and have a face to face conversation

(01:11:15):
and here, you know, herea guy tell you that you know,
and we'll hear this coming up atthe two o'clock hour. It's not acceptable
where they are, and it isn'tAlso, you can do what he just
said. People can take it andyou know, interpet how they want it.
So that's what we're gonna do.Yeah, we're gonna We're gonna go
ahead and play the old game weused to play with Pete Carroll, and
that is translate what the newsmaker hathad to say. I'll let you start.

(01:11:40):
What did you hear from that soundbite, because that was kind of
the I mean talking to us.What did you hear from that? Definitely
that they are in the process ofmoving on from Dave Haxtall. I think
that's what I took from it.If I'll just put it this way,
if they were sticking with him,they would have had a much more definitive
he's he's our guy at least atthe start of year. We're prepared to

(01:12:01):
kind of go through the process withhim as our head coach next year,
and then you can still even makea decision early then. But if it's
that questionable, you don't know.I think they're in the process of moving
on from him. I think theyare too. I think that listening to
his conversation with us also in thepress conference that took place before I had
to sit down with him, Ijust do I it feels inevitable that they're

(01:12:24):
going to make a change. AndI thought that the cut that the quote
that he had at the end abouteven Nashville got rid of their guy in
June. Yep, I thought thatwas a telling, telling statement. Now,
I mentioned this last week with theNHL and how it works, it's
different than what we're used to withthe NFL, where NFL games end on

(01:12:44):
Sunday. It is basically Black Monday. If you're going to make a coaching
movie, make it pretty soon thereafter, and you know, sometimes a week
what have you. But it's prettyquick, and in this case, you
know, it's it's been you know, a week plus, not quite a
week since the season ended. Butfor the Kraken, they are going to
go through the due diligence and theyhave this really really large analytical department and

(01:13:11):
numbers departm Remember the first hire wasAlex Mandricky from Minnesota, who oversees the
analytics effects. She's the one thathelped them make the decision to hire Ron
Francis. They're going to go througheverything, but I mean, I just
saw Sam Hollowell walk through here,and people don't know that's David Bonderman's daughter,
and she kind of she might evenshe's ahead of Todd Lightwicky in the
food chain, and that's hard todo. That's hard to do because mister

(01:13:34):
Liwicki is kind of a big deal. But she's here in town. They're
obviously going to have meetings. Ithink part of what the NHL does too.
I really believe this and this waskind of the thought for many of
us speaking after the news conference today out here, they might be waiting
to see who could possibly come available. Well, that's kind of what I
was thinking too. It's like,you don't want to announce that unless you

(01:13:57):
know who you the replacement is right, if you're if you know, I
mean, one of the decisions,this is the crazy part. One of
the decisions. I think. It'skind of like with the player. One
of the decisions. One of thedecisions you're gonna make is Okay, do
we stick with our guy or isthere a better option. Well, if
there's a better option, then thenyou make the move. And it's it's
a cruel and harsh business man,it really is. And we all understand

(01:14:17):
that coaching is not for the faintof heart, and GM's not for the
faint of heart. But listening tohim today, man, did I ever
get the impression that they they theyI think they're going to make a move
and and I wonder, you know, Vince Dunn said on Saturday that,
hey, you know, they believein the coaches. It's not on them

(01:14:39):
and all those things. And Iwould expect him to say that, I
would, Yeah, but especially becausethose guys are coming back. You're not
going to take a shot at them. But I think they need I think
they need some things to change.I really do. I think they I
think it change is needed. AndI don't think it's just an assistant coach.
I think it's bigger than that man. If that comes back, my

(01:15:00):
guess is if another slow start mightmight not be tolerated. But I kind
of feel like that's gonna be it. Okay, here's what we got coming
up. We'll check in. Ithink we have a special guests swinging by
here in just a couple of minutes. We'll talk to him. We'll also
get back to the draft and oh, by the way, we have our
first NFL trade of Draft Week.Here we go. Andrews will tell you

(01:15:21):
what it is and the headlines.We'll have a second to talk about that
because the Seahawks are on the clockat sixteen on Thursday. We'll talk about
what they could do. But wehave our first Draft week trade and it
involves a big name quarterback. We'lltell you about that next Now from the

(01:15:44):
Star Rentals Sports Tests, your ninetythree point three kJ RFM sports headlines,
Your two o'clock sports headlines are broughtto you by Buddies, Goodies and glass.
It is always for twenty apt Buddiesand you're a key word to enter
on ninety three point three sorry,three to three KJR dot com is green
as in the color of money greenand to green on nine three three KJR

(01:16:06):
dot com for a chance at onethousand bucks. Okay, Seattle Mariners take
two or three from the Rockies inColorado. They won five of their last
six And as you just started onthe show, Ron Francis says that Dave
Haxel's job status is under evaluation.Matt Ryan officially retires from the NFL after
fifteen seasons. Zach Wilson has beentraded to the Denver Broncos for a late
round pickswap that is from our guyIan Rappaport Zach. Wolves are Shoho Tani

(01:16:29):
now holds the record for the moston runs by a Japanese born player.
And in the NBA at Calves two, Wolves, Nicks, Nuggets, Celtics,
Clippers and Bucks and thunder All takegame one of their series. Their
Game two's start tonight. In theNHL, Cain's Bruins, Panthers, Rangers,
Jets, Canucks all win Game oneof their series. There are still
a couple other game ones to getstarted tonight. But let's get back into
the I in Fornest show. Allright, we're back at the Cracking Community

(01:16:56):
ice Plex. We're in the thirtytwo bar and grill where we hoping next
year that this time of the yearit's busy, it's crazy, although it'll
be that way this weekend. Ithink there's I don't think there's a weekend
that goes by here with the threesheets of ice that there isn't a youth
tournament. And you got people comingdown from chill Oak and Abbotsford or wherever
the hell else it is, maybeeven Fort McMurray. They're all driving down

(01:17:17):
here and filling this place up fortournaments on the weekend. But I look
out here in the main practice rinkand I saw a handful of Cracking players
getting recyle the World Championships earlier,but not a real practice because yes,
the season's over. Nobody likes that. If you're a Cracking fan. I
know one guy that really doesn't likethat is sitting with me right now,
Todd laight WICKI is here, whois the guy in charge of all things.

(01:17:39):
Well you you run this place too, don't you? The thirty two
I influenced the menu, Oh doyou? Yeah, that's that's about my
I saw Mick was here earlier.Kenny's over there. These are great people.
I Meck was one of the firstguys I met when I came to
Seattle way back in the day,Major way down to FX did yeah,
and it was he was a fantasticcoast And he's doing the same thing here
and then, and he's my man. I love this man to death.

(01:18:01):
He's awesome. I've known Kenny sincewe were Kenny, how old of it?
We knew each other in first grade, I think, right. Saint
Anne's St Ann's St Anne's Elementary School, and it takes a lot to get
thrown out of St. Anne's,but Ken did, and he's still recovered.
I'm glad he's not listening. Hey, you know what, Kenny.
Bob Ferguson was there too. I'llbe done to the next governor. Yeah,

(01:18:23):
yeah, so at least one famousperson came out of there. I
thought you were going to say,Bob Ferguson the general manager of the sea.
Do you want me to bring himup now? I don't you know
why Coach Pulber might be listening rightnow. Yeah, and I don't want
to do that. I'm going tosee him on Wednesday. I don't want
to. I don't like to getbig men of it. You probably didn't
like to get big men upset.Rarely did he get upset. He was
He was a pleasure. He wasn'tsure what to make of me. Initially

(01:18:45):
I looked like another suit, butI think he realized that I was actually
a guy pulling for him every day. You're not quite You're not what we
would define as a suit. Idon't think you those you've had You've worked
with some great people. I meanRon Francis is a Hall of Famer.
Yeah, Mike cl Ombrin should bea Hall of Famer. He's a ring
of honor people all across. Imean, Pete, Pete Carroll was already

(01:19:06):
I already did he did all righthere, he did good. And then
you know a guy like Steve Eismanwas super cool, Jacques Lamaier with a
Minnesota wild, Doug Risebrow, Imean there was and it's really been fun.
But it does come in handy becausethen you get to a point like
this where we don't have the seasonwe wanted, right, and you have

(01:19:27):
to keep things in perspective because Ido think people get to a point like
this and sometimes there's a little bitof a temptation to maybe throw the baby
out with the bathwater, But infact, fair counting and a good audit
of the program being built here,there's a lot to be encouraged by.
And you're one guy that really knows. You just prattled off the names of
these prospects which were so proud of. I saw a rating service last week

(01:19:51):
and that had us in the topfive in the prospect pool, and that
was you know. I remember Ron'sinterview saying, Hey, we want to
be a team that is competitive.We always want to be competitive, but
the way to build this long termis going to be through accumulating draft picks.
And so you saw that in thatfirst year there was a roster turnover,

(01:20:14):
and he took those draft picks andhe's turned him into serious prospects.
And they are only prospects until theyshow up on this ice and compete at
the highest level. But you're startingto see that a little bit and prove
positive. Is what's happened with theFirebirds, and it's just remarkable what's happened
down there, not just on theice and in the standings, second year

(01:20:36):
in the league and having this hugeimpact, but also in the community.
It's lit the well hold Coachella Valleyon fire and it's fun to watch.
And Todd, I think one ofthe things that I mentioned with it,
and we'll get into your season herein the second, but I when Shane
went back and Ryan Winterton went back, and Morrison went back, when those
guys went back to Coachella. Wediscussed it on this show. On my

(01:21:00):
show, the fact that you know, you have guys playing in the American
Hockey League playoffs, they're getting invaluableexperience. But I wouldn't say that's the
case for every franchise in that league. For this reason. I worked in
that league. I know that leaguewell, and a lot of times when
you get to the postseason in minorleague hockey, whether it's the dub or
the Ontario League or even the AmericanHockey League at the pro level, you

(01:21:20):
start your season ticket base from zero, so you're playing playoff games before like
three or four thousand people until youget some momentum. Coachella Valley. Every
night they play, it feels likea big game, right, there's ten
thousand people. I think that's importantfor them to feel some true playoff pressure,
even at the minor league level,whether it be a Shane Wright or
any of those guys and evens downthere. All those guys are there right

(01:21:41):
now. Well, and you knowthere's a guy down there I like a
lot named John Hayden. Yeah,And he said, well, you know,
it's not exactly where I thought Iwas going to be at this point
in time in my career as thecaptain of the Yale team. And he's
played I think for five NHL teams, but he's down at Coachella Valley who's
playing for the Calder Cup. Buddysaid he had a three bedroom place in
like Keeme Toup and it made astick in the eye. And I remember

(01:22:06):
when I was in Salt Lake andguys would get called up to the show
and they were thrilled. I thinkguys in Palm Spring like, I'm good.
How how is Salt Lake going todo? I think it's gonna be,
Honestly, Todd, I think it'sto be a great market. It's
it's grown so much since I wasthere. But you know, when when
we when we first when I firstwent there, I mean I was just
the PR guy and the TV andradio guy, but when I was just

(01:22:27):
watching our business people do their job, and it was it felt like this
untapped market Salt Lake has. Andall I knew about Salt Lake was I
grew up a Sonic fan and Ihated John and Carl. Next thing,
you know, I'm doing pre andpost game shows for the Jazz and trying
to bite my tongue. But itwas, you know, I came to
learn it's a great sports market,and it's a good hockey market. There's
some good youth hockey there. Whenthe Olympics came, they open, they

(01:22:49):
built some other sheets of ice likeyou guys have done as well. I
don't I think playing in the Deltacenter's a mistake. I think they should
play in the eleven thousand seat buildinginstead. But that's just no one asked
me. But it's gonna it's gonnaflourish as a market. It's gonna do
great. It's gonna do really wellwell there. And it's a rival,
you know what, Honestly, I'lldo sorry, it's Utah and Seattle have

(01:23:09):
a rivalry, and I I theCoyotes are an up and coming team whatever
they're gonna call them. I thinkit's gonna be exciting for us here in
Seattle to have a Utah rival.Yeah, I think it's cool. Stabilizes.
I think eventually they'll figure it outin the desert. But at end,
that kind of owner and you know, the arena situation's going to get
influenced by their bid to host theWinter Olympics again, and that was turned

(01:23:32):
out to be. I'd love thatwinner Olympics. It was so awesome,
you know. And I'm I'm nottalking politics, but Mitt Romney stepped in
there and the two leaders were aboutto go to jail. He did an
incredible job of turning that whole thingaround. Well, the infrastructure they built
down there, it showed what prosports can do for for an area and
or just sports as a whole.I mean for people to know when they

(01:23:53):
built, when the Olympics came there, they had some issues in terms of
getting things built. Romney stepped inand not only got every thing done.
The infrastructure is the highways, thefreeway system and all that. It's it's
the light transit rail and stuff.It's it's remarkable what they did, and
it's it's a really good sports town. It also shows Ryan Smith they wanted

(01:24:13):
to get him in the league.I think the NHL has kind of progressed
at that point where they want toget owners that are forward thinking, like
in your organization. People like that, right they and Samantha Holloway is another
part of the story that we haven'treally told us. Tell people, Tell
people who she is, because Ithink I mentioned Andrews, my producer.
She walked by a minute ago,and I said, that's the most unassuming
looking person that has more power insports than anybody could ever imagine I've ever

(01:24:36):
seen saying, Hi, everybody's walkingthrough shoes. She was quite remarkable.
David Bonderman, you know, cameto all of this really through his friendship
with Jerry Bruckheimer and Jared had beensaying we should buy an NHL team,
And Bondo actually is a owner partowner of the Boston Celtics, so hockey

(01:24:58):
hadn't been a sport. But Jerryhe loved it and kept encouraging him.
They met up with my brother.He had this crazy idea that you could
hold that roof up and build abrand new arena under it. And then
you know, he was talking thatthrough and I met Bondo and very impressive
guy, low key, soft spoken, and we didn't really see that much

(01:25:21):
of his family, with the exceptionof his daughter Samantha, and she came
to some meetings, and then astime marched on, you could see that
she was astute and smart and carriedherself well, and you know, and
he at that point in time said, hey, I want to get her
more involved in the executive committee.She might be able to share this and
then lo and behold, she calledone day and said, how would you

(01:25:43):
feel with my family? And Imoved to Seattle and that was probably two
and a half years ago, andit's been a pleasure. She actually,
she and I sat in my officefor a better part of a year and
a half. She wanted to learnthe business, so I said, there's
no better way to do it thanto hear the small talk, because there's
big meetings and pronounced meetings and agendas, and then there's the small talk where

(01:26:06):
we all know that's where rubber meetsthe road. And she's been delightful.
She's she's been a wonderful leader.She gives hope to the whole thing.
She's not only youthful and her ideasand her attitude, she's physically youthful.
And Uh, if I'm somebody who'sa betting person, and I'm not,

(01:26:30):
but if I were, I wouldbet that she'll be at some point in
time leading the charge for the NBAhere as well. People always want to
know, I'm gonna go back tohockey a second. You said, NBA,
where are we there? Well,I think it's heating up and I
think, uh, something's going tohappen. And you know, we've always
said, hey, we don't wantto get in front of the commissioner,
but we wanted to get in frontof this. We wanted to build an

(01:26:51):
arena that was custom, custom fit. We did a study that showed our
sidelines are better than two of thefour dedicate an NBA only arenas. It's
going to be an incredible place.We've seen it with the preseason games.
We saw it when Gonzaga played here. We see it all the time when
the Storm plays here. It isa fabulous and some of that is architecture,

(01:27:15):
but some of it was disciplined atthe site where you had to dig
down and I just had to makeit uniquely steep. And so the arena
is fixed. I think, youlook at this training center. This is
my second one, and do wehave a third one? This we do.
And I think that much of whatthe NBA left for is now here

(01:27:36):
in place and ready to go.And we have ownership that I believe will
step up at the right time.And I think it's, you know,
something that's going to happen. Therewas talk about it, should it happen
and should they expand I don't reallyhear that too much anymore. In the
two cities that I hear about areSeattle in Las Vegas, and they they've
got to get there whatever they needto get done. First, TV contracts,

(01:27:59):
what have you. Yep, andthen we'll wait and see yep.
But you know, you want tobe ready. But the Rubik's cube of
this, and it went on fordecades, was the arena and not being
able to get the arena right.And you can cast dispersions along that whole
journey, and it's easy to lookat specific people, but it eventually got
down to the public had fatigued onfunding these facilities, and it happened way

(01:28:25):
before the crisis because in fact,the vote for the Mariners failed in the
county YEP and Paul knew that PaulAllen the Seahawks, he was going to
have to take it to a statewidevote and that was great peril in that
so that the communities, you know, local communities had fatigued on this,
and I'll just say it, Iunderstand and when you see communities investing the

(01:28:49):
kind of money in these facilities,which are private sector, you know,
you can understand how somebody could effectivelycarry the debate on the other side of
that. So we came in anddid it the hard way, and we
you know, the project was wellover a billion dollars. This was eighty
million or eighty five million. Therewere startup costs, but that then put

(01:29:13):
us in the pole position and todaythe future is bright real. What what
did the Virginia mased Athletics Center costs? It was about seventy So, I
mean, so you've had two youin our market, just our market.
You've done in other markets as well, but you've built overseen two state of
the art practice facilities. Right,yeah, did you learn from the Virginia

(01:29:34):
based athletics center what to do here? Yeah, in a sense, and
then we've learned here what we'll doon this next one? Yes? And
do I think there will be thenext one? I do? Would it
be here? A practice was,so I'm not going to get into that,
like I'm already singing like a jaybirdhere, Like normally, I know
it's shocking that you would do that. You're usually still close to the vest
and not honest with us. I'mgoing to play it's not honest. No,

(01:29:55):
no, I said, you are, honestly, You're very honest with
us, overly honest. Probably forsome people it's like, did you ever
think your brother was nuts? Bythe way, when when he said we're
going to take this roof, keepit and build a building here, I
thought he was. I think Itold you that, And and now I
go every time I walk in there, I'm just like, there's a wow
factor that's unbelievable. Well, Ithink that. I think it didn't matter
as much what he thought. Itmattered what architects right, specifically, an

(01:30:18):
engineer a firm out of Boston,and they, you know, they had
courage. Every engineer is required tohave a peer review of their structural work,
and that was a little hard tocome by because there were those who
didn't fully believe that you could holdthis roof in place anticipate close to a

(01:30:40):
ten point zero earthquake or maybe anine. But it was a hard,
arduous, difficult journey with a globalpandemic thrown in the middle just for sport.
I mean it was. It wastough, and the project ended up
costing more than we thought. Wehappened to be in a favorable interest markets,

(01:31:00):
so that was helpful. But itshowed real commitment by these owners.
But there was always a third actof the play. There was the arena
of the NHL team, and thenthere was the rightful event of the NBA
coming back, and I'm hopeful thathappens twilight week. He's with us.
I want to play a quick SoundBite. I had your general manager, mister
Francis, was sitting here earlier todayand we talked about a number of things,

(01:31:24):
from Dave Haxtall's future decisions being madethere and also just overall his thoughts
on just a disappointing season. Likeyou said, here's Ron Francis, just
from a few minutes ago. We'renot going to be here next year,
are we? No? Well,if we're here, we're talking about our
team in the playoffs. Hopefully that'swhat I like. I mean. I
didn't move myself and my family allthe way across the country not to win

(01:31:44):
and be successful. My goal hereis to build an extremely successful franchise for
our ownership, for our fans,for the city of Seattle, and that's
what we're going to continue to workto make it right. I hear.
I mean, when you're a Hallof Famer and you're the all time league
scores in the history of the league, and when you have raised a Stanley
Cup as a player, having tosit home and watch games three hours north

(01:32:08):
of Vancouver, or a white outin Winnipeg or whatever's taking place all across
the country. Matthew Rempy scoring agoal, by the way, shout out
to Matthew Rempy. Huh, mygoodness, looks looked like he had got
caught stealing. It was like forpeople who missing the former thunderbird who's been
running, just running guys through thewalls and glass and dropping the midst with

(01:32:30):
everybody. Scored a goal in hisfirst playoff game, but watching all that
from afar probably didn't sit doesn't obviouslydoesn't sit well with with the Ron Francis.
I'm sure it doesn't sit well withyou either. Yeah, it's you
know, that was such a funrun last year and to see people who
weren't hockey fans going crazy in theplayoffs and running around the concourses at the

(01:32:53):
building and it was it was reallya phenomenal thing because I love the game
and I think think I think thegame has so much to offer Seattle,
but it's a bit of an acquiredtaste and it's not the easiest game to
understand, and the constant shift changesand why they're shifting, and the aerobic
part of the sport, and youknow, the fighter pilot mentality of the

(01:33:15):
players were just snapped decisions and doubletriple anticipation happening. But you know,
I do look at our team andI think our goaltending is settled down.
And now you know, when youlook and you snapped the Chuck line mid
season to the end of the season, super super good performance in the net.
I think our defense is solid andstatistically it proves it out. So

(01:33:40):
what do we need to do.We need to get some additional goal scoring
capacity on this team, get guyscoming out of some slumps that they individually
had. Sprinkle this roster with someof these youthful players who clearly are our
future, and we're going to bein a good place because the pipeline starts
to really on in a year ortwo. You're going to see these amazing

(01:34:01):
prospects, three of them who areleading their leagues and scoring. There are
some amazing prospects, And to behonest with you, in my hockey journey,
I don't think I've ever been witha team that's had such a rich
group of prospects. But they arestill prospects and they've got to go through
finishing school. But you're seeing it, and you know you're seeing it with

(01:34:25):
the Firebirds, and those kids arelighting it up down there, and you
know a number of them in theirfuture is definitely here. But we have
to win and we owe it notjust to our fans to win next year,
we also owe it to the players, some of our vets, who
are you know, at one ofthe most important times of their career.
They want to know, they wantto know, and you know, exit

(01:34:48):
interviews, that's what you hear issaying, I know we have great prospects,
but are we committed to winning,and they you know, they get
the answer that they assume, whichis apps Ron said, they took a
run at some last year. Youguys took up pretty he said. We
took some very big swings in somefor some very big trades. Probably I'm

(01:35:10):
assuming during draft time and maybe afterwardsit didn't work out. I've always understood
here. I mean, we jokeabout Kenny, the guys running thirty two
bar and grill, but whether it'snutrition for the players, everything, everything
done is done here without hesitation.There's other organizations in all sports that do
have a hesitation with costs. Youguys don't do that, but there's a
salary cap that said. I getthe idea and the impression that all those

(01:35:31):
draft picks won't be used. Thiswill have a different look. This team
will have a different look next yure, Carson Raiko is not going to come
in and score thirty goals next year. Fercus isn't going to do the same.
Hell, he'll probably back in juniorsat nineteen. But you are going
to take a swing. This team'sgoing to score more next year. Right
yep, Yes, as simple asthat have my word, Okay, And
it was hard. I felt likeit was a hard year too, Like

(01:35:54):
you didn't get any help from thecable company on day one, raise the
price on route and that just thatkind of yeah. Because you talk about
the todd I think it's so true. It's not for everybody, but we
the acquired taste comes in the playoffs. I would just urge people watch the
Stanley Cup playoffs. My goodness.If you have the ability to watch CBC,
watch CBC six nineteen. If youhave cable, you'll see it.

(01:36:15):
You'll hear and feel and see whatplayoff hockey's about. We had that last
year. And you know, backto the cable piece, we have some
big plans in the works of howwe're going to liberate some of what we're
doing to a broader audience. I'llsave that, but mark my words,
how important is that? It's important? And this is going to be an
eventful offseason on the ice and offthe ice, and mark my words,

(01:36:39):
We've got a couple of big announcementsand there's one I'd love to blow right
here, but I have not beensitting at the bar drinking. I've been
sitting with you water. I'm notgoing to do it. Oh okay,
all right, with no breaking newsfrom Todd. It is I think there's
gonna be a fun off season.It's me exciting off season. I'll leave
you with this, just real quick. You have sat in the room over

(01:37:00):
across the lake a few times.NFL Draft starts Thursday. John Schneider gets
the first go at it. Youknow, John, Yeah, what do
you think? Well? I havea couple of comments. I've spent a
little bit of time with Pete Carrollthe last three weeks. Just incredible.
He is he in the you know, in the spirit of our friendship,

(01:37:21):
my friendship with him. He isso happy for John good. He sings
the praise of the organization, Hesings the praise of the owner. And
when you want to know what kindof guy Pete is, there's a perfect
piece of evidence that he's an extraordinaryperson. Because in that moment, could

(01:37:44):
he have complained, could he havesaid I deserved another It doesn't occur to
it. What occurs to him wascheering on his buddy, John Schneider,
wanting only the best for Jody andbelieving it's a great organization pois for big
things. John does get a shotbecause it had been the Pete and John
show, but a lot of timesPete's name was first, when in fact,

(01:38:06):
John was a guy who had ata very very young age, you
know, applied his trade and wentall the way to the Zenith and then
was let go. He reinvented himselfback in Green Bay where it all began.
He's a guy knowing love. Andif you know, you hear his

(01:38:27):
story about menacing ron Wolf for ajob, and finally ron Wolf picks up
the phone and says, well whattime, He said, I'll be here
for a few more hours, andJohn was in Minneapolis. He got in
his car and broke all speed landrecords and somehow he made it there for
the interview. But you know,they want you know, that's been a

(01:38:49):
complete and total transformation to the team. And I think that you know Jody
and you know Chuck Arnold amazing storystarted out as an interminus now the team
President Bay, but he was doinga lot more in that he was He's
fantastic. And Bert Cold who's beenthere from day one. There's a lot
of people and I think they're goingto be a really interesting team. They're

(01:39:13):
like you. The Seahawks are muchlike you, And of course that's because
you were there. The word rebuildisn't used inside those walls, right,
and it's not used to hear either, I don't think. Yeah, which
is pretty amazing now well, andwe got so much good going on,
but they they took that word outof their vocabulary by acting in such a
decisive way having said that Pete's gotbig dreams too. This is a man

(01:39:33):
who is just. It was soinformative to just be around the guy,
and it's been special in my lifeto have him, you know, be
a mentor, and he is amanner. I wasn't so sure. I
thought this man is just it couldanyone ever be this optimistic? He gets
out of bed every day something sayingsomething good's about to happen today. And

(01:39:56):
even in the dark days for him, so called dark days, during a
you know, losing, you canalways found hope and that's the sign of
a great leader. It's also agood way to go through life, it
is, I mean, it's agreat it's a good way to go through
life. Right on. That isTodd light Wiki. I appreciate your time.
You should do this for a living. You could probably you know,
I mean, you know it's coming. Your name would be first, but
as long as I got to knowit could be the Todd Newt Show.

(01:40:17):
I'm good with that. Todd lWick will take a break, come back.
Check your text four nine four fiveone next

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Furness Show 4-22: Mariners, Ron Francis, Molly Whop Monday, Daily Power Play, Tod Leiweke.

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