Bret Boone and Larry Stone go through the moves that the Seattle Mariners made at the Trade Deadline and give the team a letter grade.
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Go to Shopify.com/MLB podcast to take your retail business to the next level today. Hey, it's Rob Bradford with Sabi Technologies, the world's hottest cloud storage provider recently asked themselves what good is storing data if you can't access what you need when you need it. Their answer? Wasabi Air is the first intelligent cloud storage with built-in AI auto-tagging capabilities. Now, everything you store with wasabi every game ever played, every movie ever produced can be first through quickly and easily. Go to wasabi.com to see how wasabi air can breathe new life into your content. It's always important to talk to Larry so especially, I'm really excited about getting into this Mariner deadline. I know you've been watching him, you covered him for 25, 27 years and I know you're still keeping an eye on them even in your recently, recent retirement. What do you grade the Mariner's 2024 trade deadline? First of all, you're supposed to be retired in Hawaii, not doing work, but I've got to learn from you about how to do retirement. I'd give them an A minus B plus, they had a crying need for a bat and they got a really good one in Randy O'Rosa, I know a lot of people are upset that they didn't get more, they did get Justin Turner who's a, he's 39 but he's still a quality veteran hitter and they got a leverage bullpen arm that they needed in Jimmy Garcia so they did not land Vlad Guerrero, they didn't land Brent Rooker or Yandy Diaz but in O'Rosa Reyna they probably the number one bat that went into deadline. You've been watching this a long time and you've seen how the playoff format has changed over the years. There is just not that many clear cut sellers anymore with the 12 spots and the two months out versus the month out for the trading deadline. It's not clear cut, a lot of guys who, hey, we're still in this thing. I was a little surprised to see Tampa Bay who's only three and a half games out of the wild car kind of selling the lot but who am I to question Tampa Bay at this stage with their budget and year in and year out how they have the most turnover on a roster and consistently go to the postseason so I'm not going to question Tampa Bay and their motives because they seem to have a formula down there but there's just not sellers as many sellers as in years past and I think this trade deadline was active. There was definitely a lot of volume but you didn't have that marquee player of like you mentioned of Vladimir Guerrero. I know the big starting pitching that everybody was after was a scuba or a crochet, they ended up not going anywhere at the trading deadline. In years past we've had a Justin Verlander or a Max Scherzer type huge blockbuster deal. There was none of that but I saw a lot of quality trading here. A lot of good players that are going to make teams better and when it comes to the Mariners I really like the Eros Arena. He brings an energy, he brings a definitely a big time personality. Maybe that's what a Julio Rodriguez player needs is an Eros Arena with that competing personality to kind of push them at the same time you bring in a Justin Turner who's kind of the polar opposite of Eros Arena when it comes to personality. He's that more of that Edgar Martinez, that calming voice, that veteran, that respected player that is almost like a father figure to a young team. I love the Garcia move, bringing him in from the Blue Jays I think with a Matt Brash of a year ago, missing the entire 24 campaign so far. I think there was a big hole in that bullpen late in the high leverage situation, bringing in Garcia your thoughts on the Mariners and the additions they made. Yeah, no, I think you're right in that Eros Arena I think will help Julio. He kind of thrives off that sort of thing, playing with another great hitter which he hasn't had or a good, interestingly, Julio's on the injured list so we won't get to see them together until hopefully the next homestand he has a high ankle sprain. They think he'll be back on the next homestand when the 10 days are up but I don't know if you've noticed but Victor Robles is hitting 360 since they picked him up from the Nationals. So an outfield of Robles, Eros Arena and Julio has the potential to be to be potent. Let's face it, Boonie, this team will go as far, not just the trade deadline, guys. They need their existing guys to pick it up, including Julio who's had a lackluster season. JP Crawford who's out four to six weeks with an injury, he's had a subpar year. Mitch Hanniger's had a subpar year, Mitch Garver's had a terrible year. Jorge Polanco was finally picking it up, he'd been terrible all year until the all-star break about the last two or three weeks, he's hitting what they expected from him. So those guys will give a boost but it needs to be supplemented by the guys that they have. And I think and you could speak to this that you could sort of having two new guys to take some of the load off probably could take some of the pressure off guys like Julio who thinks they have to carry the team and now he has some other guys that he could turn to. Yeah, you know, I look at a Julio and yeah, he signed the big contract and he's the future face of the Mariners. But you forget that he's so young, you know, he's 22, 23 years old, that's a lot to be on your shoulders. Now, when you sign that type of contract, that's that's one of the things that comes with it. You're going to be accountable at a high level. Nobody cares what your age is. They expect you we pay you that kind of money, we need production. But I have a soft spot because I know what it was like to be that young. I'm amazed at what he's doing at such a young age. But you tend to you don't have the experience yet. And I think Julio tends to put a lot on his shoulders day in and day out like I've got to carry this team. I've got to be the next guy. And sometimes that's a that's a detriment as far as Crawford. Do you think in his absence and it's probably going to be six weeks, do they have enough at shortstop to kind of plug that hole with the Dylan Moore? Well, Dylan Moore. Oh, shit. I yell once before frozen, Dylan Moore really did well. And he, he, I think he thrives when he's playing every day and gets into a rhythm instead of being a bench guy. He had a big night last night based clearing double off the monster and Boston that helped them win that game. They do miss JP. They miss his glove. They miss his leadership. But I think they'll be OK with Dylan Moore. All star closer. Ken Lee Janssen. We have a question. What's the best podcast of all time? This boy isn't boring, baby. I'm Rob Radford. And every single day I'm sitting down with the biggest names to show you this great game is the greatest game. It's my podcast. It's my passion. It's a cause. I started more than two years ago. And it's now the most prolific national daily baseball pod. There is another fact. So jump aboard the BIB Express, follow and listen to baseball as I'm boring presented by Wasabi hot cloud storage on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Going into this trade deadline. What was Larry? What were you thinking? Were you thinking, are they not going to do anything? They're going to do exactly what they did. What were your thoughts? You've been on, I don't know how many trade deadlines you've been a part of in Seattle, and I know it's more than 20. So what were your thoughts going on? Were you surprised with the outcome? Well, I go back to Derek Lowe and Jason. I go back to Derek Lowe and Jason Veritek for Heathcliff Slocum because it'd been 97. So you're right, I've been around a few Mariner trade deadlines. I was expecting Jerry DiPoto to be aggressive because that's the way he, that's his MO is to be aggressive. And I think they did everything they could to get Vlad Guerrero. And what's interesting, Boonie, is that they have what a lot of people believe is the number one farm system in baseball right now. So they had the trade ships to do pretty much whatever they wanted. The fact that Guerrero wasn't traded tells me that it didn't matter what they offered. The Blue Jays weren't going to make that deal because I'm sure they could have leveraged Guerrero for a lot of prospects. So I expected them to be aggressive and they were. They made three significant trades, one minor trade to dump Ryan Stanik with the Mets. And they did not have to dip too deeply into their, into their farm system either. The guys that they traded for Rosa Reyna are good prospects and you never underestimate the raise. They seem to have a knack for finding the right guys to trade for. But they weren't really, they weren't the upper echelon of the Mariners prospect list. So they have all those guys to maybe make a deal in the off season or just wait for them to develop and come up and help the big league team. So I knew that they had to get a bat and I think Depoto was smart in jumping the market. He made that trade. That was really the first trade last Thursday of this trade deadline and it kind of jump started the whole market. And I think by not waiting and getting it done, he assured that he got what turned out to be maybe along with jazz jizzom, the best, the best bat out there. Another thing I want to talk about is Seattle and you've been around for so long. You were there at the beginning of junior. Is it unfair and when we're speaking of Julio now, is it unfair and does it seem like ever since Ken Griffey came on the scene, every upcoming star, every, you know, Kellenick went through it a little bit. He ended up moving on to Atlanta. But is it unfair? Does everybody put those Ken Griffey expectation? Who's the next Griffey? When maybe there is not a next Griffey or maybe in our lifetime, there won't be. What you've seen is Seattle, is that an unfair thing? And do you think the city puts it on the latest and greatest star, whoever that may be, ever since Kenny left? Yeah, I think that's waning a little bit as time passes and the fan base now includes a lot of people who never saw Ken Griffey, the kids who are Mariner fans, they don't have really that comparison, I think the older fans do. But in the case of Julio, I think he kind of embraces that. He's one of those guys that doesn't shy away. He wants to be the man. He wants the spotlight, he wants the pressure on his shoulders. And I think that's good. You've seen guys over the years who kind of shy away from that. He embraces it. I think that's going to help him. But also, as you mentioned earlier, I do think that maybe him trying to do too much has been to his detriment this year. He's tried to hit his way out of his slump and, you know, all at once, the five run home run and everything. And it was only finally before he got hurt that he looked like the old Julio, which was really an unfortunate timing of this injury, because he was really starting to swing the bat well. But yeah, to a certain extent, the shadow of Ken Griffey Jr. will hang over every prospect that comes up that particularly the outfielders. But I think Julio is prepared to handle that.
