Hour 2 - Are The Mariners Better Than Last Year's Team, Ryan Sloan, Blue 88

Get in the freaking auto! From the Quantum Fiber Studio, this is Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports. Brock Heward and Mark, Matt, Marcus, sorry about just that. Mike. Heward, not exactly Joe Capp there in the pocket. Now here are your hosts, Brock Heward and Mike Salk. All right, hi Brock, good morning. Good morning, Michael, how are you? Good. Good? You good? Very good. You doing okay? Doing great. Yeah. Yeah. What's up? I just, you know, like we get back. You're coming in a little hot today. I know because I worked out this morning because I'm kind of back in my routine. Remember I hosted the men's conference Saturday. Sure. I mean time of my life connected like this with Bo Nix's dad. I was like looking at what I could be in like five years as a grandpa to be, you know. So I'm full of that, full of joy, full of some, got some sweat out. And I'm back in my routine. And as much as I absolutely love being a reptile next to you down there and having our table, there is something to just kind of getting back in rhythm. And I know you did as well this weekend, right? You got a little hockey. You're up at your favorite place, Cracking Ice Plex. I wish. No, we were at the Snow King in Kirkland, unfortunately. Yeah. Tough loss. Overtime loss on the road. I know. It was brutal. It was just brutal. Just brutal. But it's all right. All right. So let me jump into stuff today. We got a lot of baseball to talk. Ryan Sloan coming up in 30 minutes. This is the last thing we taped before we left. Dude's hilarious. You guys are going to have to listen to Ryan Sloan. Pretty good timing. He was pretty good yesterday, Salky. I know. I know. He was good. So we got some Ryan Sloan for you coming up in a half hour. And then Hawk Blogger. Brian Nemhauser at 830 to kind of take us inside the combine. So some football, some baseball today. I got a text from a friend yesterday that said, I'm having a discussion with a buddy. He says the Mariners are better than last year. I told him I'd get your expert opinion. Well, I appreciate being labeled an expert in this case. Thank you for that. And you so love predictions. I mean, if there's one thing over the years, especially Mariner's predictions, really good for your soul, really, really puts you in your happy place to try to write about, try to predict, try to anticipate what this thing is going to look like. Did you answer? Or are you taking in the counsel a while and more of me? I did answer, but I was curious what you guys would have said before I tell you what I said. Oh, I would have said on paper, if you were with us all last week, on paper, you would see that this is a more mature team and a complete team. So are they going to be a better team? It's baseball, brother. It's baseball. And I didn't steal your phone, Salk, so I don't know exactly how you responded back, but I'm going to guess it included some of that, didn't it? You know what the first two words were? It's baseball. No. First two words are the same first two words you just used. On paper. I mean, literally, exactly. That is what I wrote. Why am I even here? Why am I even here? Why do we even bother? Yeah, we can just predict each other's thoughts. Yeah, I said on paper, he's right. But as we know, the game isn't played on paper. The expectations are sky high. It'll be interesting to see how they handle that. But they are a complete team. Top-tier rotation. Excellent bullpen. superstar hitters at the top deep lineup mediocre division so like everything is is on paper set up for them it's just that we don't play games on paper you actually have to go out and do it and you got to stay healthy and you know bryce miller right after you say all this has a little oblique thing pop up over the weekend is he going to be okay probably i'm not going to freak out because bryce miller's going to miss a week with an oblique but i don't like it i don't like obliques for pitchers. I've made that pretty clear over the years. Can we clarify something, please? Is there a difference between the side and an oblique? They said, I saw oblique. You did see oblique? Okay, because I saw side. I saw both. Oh, good. Okay, all right, just to clarify. All right. No, it does. Immediately, like, oh, okay, well, he was ramped up to 98. Yeah. Mooney's been ramping up to 100. You're going to hear this interview. He was sitting at 99 yesterday. And like just, you know, it's kind of like taking that IROC, you know, into its sixth gear down ninth street and up that hill. Like, can you do this repeatedly and over and over and over again? Or do you kind of want to slow down the RPMs a little bit to sustain? So, you know, I think that that is some of the journey as well. But quite honestly, I think you just tell your friend, we were embedded for a week and real close to it. And if you were as well, and you just also saw kind of the fabric of these guys, and I know that's hard to define. And I know it may not be the same as football where you're literally blood, sweat and tears, laying it physically on the line for the guy next to you. But as Julio sat down and told us, like, it matters. It matters. Bryce needs to know or Logan needs to know. I'll run through the wall. Right. And they know that and they know they're going to run through the wall and they're going to do all they can on their end. So, yeah, they got a they got a whole bunch of, I think, good things and good ingredients humming in the recipe. Yeah, and to specifically answer the question, are they better than last year? So an actual comparison to where they were at last season, I think in some ways the obvious answer is yes. Well, who did they lose? They lost Suarez. They lost two and a half months of Suarez that unfortunately was not like the previous four months in Arizona. And they lost Polanco. And you fill that in with a Brennan Donovan, a third. And I think, yeah, they're different guys or different players, different skill sets, but one fills the need right at the top of the lineup as well. See, it's funny. I don't actually make that count because I think what we saw from Gino, unfortunately, just wasn't all that good when he was here. That's right. I know he had a good year leading up to being here, and it was good to get him here and all that, but he didn't do a whole lot short of the one big home run. Like, he just was not a major contributor down the stretch. For me, Brendan Donovan replaces Jorge Polanco. Like, I just look at it and say, okay, instead of Polanco, you got Brendan Donovan. he's younger uh he has a slightly different skill set but similar type of you know impact on the roster and then instead of the mess you had at first base for four months last year you got josh naylor right i mean like instead of the weird mess at first you've got a guy playing there every single day in josh naylor other than that your pitching staff should be healthier you brought in another lefty in ferrer that's kind of your team yep yeah i think the honestly on paper the single biggest difference you could argue is that now you have a bona fide legitimate leadoff hitter and if you believe in that stuff and a lot of people don't anymore and it's just like it doesn't matter lineups don't matter leadoff guys don't matter it's all about production well i i think you know that's still some of the old school in me that with this lineup and what's behind it i think it's important to set the table and i think that that could end up being one of the bigger you know deltas uh between last year and this year in a positive way of like yeah now you've got this guy who gets on base 36 of the time and what that can do to kind of fire start everybody else behind them so yeah i i don't know how you make an argument is there an argument on the other side what would be the argument on the other side i mean and realize this too okay so i'll try to make it for you but i don't want to be like no you don't do it sulk you know what you don't do this because the minute you do this somebody jumps on at 707 and they're like there he is yep so I'll be a negative yep so Lyle Lyle you do this legs Lyle Lyle has to have the same problem no that's not fair to Lyle I'm not I'm not gonna do that to Lyle I don't want Lyle to be the negative guy either Mora you do this Mora's not gonna do this that's not why they were better last year yeah yes can you make any case of course you can the Brock the case is Cal Raleigh hit 60 home runs last year. There you go. That's a good case. I mean, that's the case. That is essentially what the case is. Cal Raleigh hit 60 home runs last year, and Jorge Polanco had a much better season than anyone thought that he ever would. Okay. That's your case to say that the Mariners were better last year than they were better this year. Gotcha. But I don't know that it's enough to overcome all of the other things. And even with all the injuries, what, Brian Wu was the leading pitcher at going six innings or more in the entire league. yeah and you had to overcome 80 injuries in your rotation last year it's not going to happen this year it could it's baseball you have no what's going to happen right i mean like happen but i think you do you do kind of look at it and i'll tell you what this time last year there was not a kate anderson and orion sloan they're not those two guys starting to kind of kind of kind of bark and nip a little bit like hey you know i'm here i'm here like and i know it's not going to be here opening day. We said that Logan Evans was in that spot last year. I don't know that he has quite the same reputation. I don't think anybody thought he had the upside. But we were talking about him as a guy that was going to help out and going to be a part of it. He's Lyle's buddy. Look, again, that's just sort of playing devil's advocate. He's Larry's son. I would say it is on paper, I think very very clear that when you add Josh Naylor to, again, I'm looking at the full of last year. You want to know Another argument for why this year is better, the subtraction. I mean, you're not playing Donovan Solano and Rowdy Tellez for months of the season this year. I mean, we haven't really mentioned. Didn't you say on Friday one of your favorite words about all of this was complete? Absolutely. It's a much more complete team. Rob Refsnyder and Leo Rivas are probably going to be the 25th and 26th players on this team. That is a huge, massive upgrade from where you were a year ago. So I am very excited. I do think it's going to be a lot of fun. You never know what's going to happen. On paper, it's very different from in reality, and we'll see what happens over the course of six months. The lineup you start with isn't going to be the lineup you finish with. Same with the rotation, same with the bullpen. Baseball throws all sorts of twists and turns at you over the course of the season. But to answer, my friend, yeah, right now, I would say the Mariners look better than they did a year ago. We'll come right back with everything you need to know, And we'll let you hear from this kid, Ryan Sloan, at 730. I found him to be very entertaining. I think you will as well. It's Brock and Salk. See all sports on 710. Highlights don't win games. The full box score does. I'm Brock Huard, and most business leaders aren't short on data. They're short on clarity. Numbers are scattered across ERPs, CRMs, and spreadsheets, making decisions reactive instead of confident. And that's not how great businesses are built. Marquee IQ brings all your data together into one clear view. even if it lives in disconnected systems or offline, so you can see what's really happening and act faster. Stop running your business on highlights. Get the full picture. Visit datathatwins.com to see what marquee IQ can do. Stream every Seattle sports show with the Seattle Sports App. Brought to you by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Get new videos, podcasts, and articles on the Seahawks and Mariners from your favorite Seattle sports personalities daily. need to know 15 minutes past every hour with brock and salk presented by marquee data here's what you need to know up first not a great weekend uh results wise for the mariners not that it matters uh lose to the Diamondbacks Padres and Rangers Friday Saturday Sunday But that was definitely not the story The story was the kids and specifically the young pitchers. Kate Anderson making his debut on Saturday. Brock, three strikeouts, struck out the side in the first, got a little trouble in the second inning. But he was very good and talked afterwards. It's hilarious. is uh he is very cliff lee very very much hey what makes your fastball so good even though you don't throw quite as hard i think just having four pitches for strikes um yeah i'm not that i'm not the velo guy everyone might think i am i'm more of a pitcher so having four pitches i can throw any count really helps not a thrower pitcher he's a pitcher i'm a pitcher yeah yeah and by the way not a lot of velo even though you said at 94 that's the world we're living in today 93 94 not a lot of velo yeah just not a velo guy it's more of a pitcher the other guy ryan sloan kind of a velo guy sloan's one two swung on ground ball softly hit right to shortstop rivas has it whips it to first how about that they got the out it's a one two three inning for ryan sloan Very impressive for the 20-year-old prospect for the Mariners as he walks off after hanging a zero here in the fourth. He has 12 pitches, Salk. And remember that little word that Shannon whispered as we were watching his bullpen? Paint. Paint, yeah. He paints it because he's got great command as well. I mean, how many 20-year-olds that throw 99 miles per hour command it the way he does? That's why I was reading a bunch of stuff yesterday. Like, yeah, man, this guy's ceiling. This is a one. It's not a two, three, or four. It's stuff at this age and this stage. This is like one kind of stuff. And what is Kane Anderson, a two? Is that sort of what you would view that as upside-wise? I mean, these things are so hard to predict because you say it, and then you never know what direction these guys are all going to go. But it's like the combine that I watched all weekend long. Yeah, you're trying to project. You're just looking at traits-y stuff. And, yeah, man, that guy's 6'4", 240, runs 4'4". That's like elite kind of talent stuff. You're 6'3", 220, throw 99 in paint corners. That's elite, traits-y kind of stuff. Fun to see it on his play. One other thing that jumped out to me this weekend, Brock, was this. That may be a home run. Swing and a fly ball. Deep to right field off the bat at Cole Young. Goodbye baseball. Cole Young, his first home run of the kick this league season. It was also his first hit of the season, but it came off a lefty. That's something I'm going to be watching for. You know, home runs in spring training or whatever, they kind of tend to go a little farther down there than they do up here. But to have it come off a lefty, something that, you know, will be a question mark for him moving forward, although that was pretty cool to see Luke Raley hit his first home run in the spring. Also off a lefty. As well. Here's the second thing you need to know. All right, Brock, I know you watched a lot of NFL Combine this weekend. What did you see? Someone on the air called me old and lazy. Someone called me. And you know what? I take those things. I take those things. Yeah. And I may have pulled it. It may have been on my loop this morning on my AirPods. Like, I'm old and lazy. I'm old and lazy. So I had a choice yesterday, kind of after church, after a little throwing session with the boys. Do I come home and take a Sunday nap? Or do I watch the 18 hours of Combine that I had recorded and kind of zip through that so I'm ready to go on Monday morning? Sounds like you could do both things at once. I don't know why you felt the need to choose between those two things. I would have put on the combine and immediately fallen asleep. Thankfully, DJ took a zinger like in the first 10 minutes. They have one of those guys in the stands wearing those stupid big hats, you know, and he's like, oh, look at that, Rich. Somebody's got Bruce Bochy's hat. And I'm like, okay, I'm in. You got me, DJ. I'm in. I'm going to watch all the big guys. And, yeah, I'll get to this in Blue 88, man. And it was, speaking of traits, this might not be a production kind of class that we have seen over the last two or three years because you've had a lot of COVID guys and everything. But this was an athlete kind of class. Like this was a traits kind of class. Certainly at the top end of just about every position group, as I said, I'll hit on that and more. And certainly Hawk Blogger, who was there with his partner for a number of days. We'll get to a bunch of that. We'll do that a lot in the 8 o'clock hour. NFL did send the new salary cap. figures to teams, Brock. So the new numbers, over $300 million for the first time. $301.2 million. That's a $22 million increase from last year, and teams have until basically next week, March 11th, to be under that number. I think I can look it up. I think in 1999, when I was drafted, I think it was one-third of that. I think we had just crossed the $100 million threshold. Isn't that amazing? And all of that is going to be relevant to anybody who was looking to buy the Seahawks, right? I mean, like, that is a direct reflection of how much revenue they're bringing in. It is tied to that, so the revenue leads to the percentage, which leads to the salary cap. Remember, that's about 50, isn't it, close to, like, 55, 45, or, I don't know, 51, 49. So if that's going to the players, these teams are making $3, $350 million a year. That's not bad. Not bad. Yeah, that's not bad. Here's the third thing you need to know. Local hockey clubs this weekend, Brock. Good weekends for different reasons. First, it was the Torrent. They said another American women's hockey league or American's hockey attendance record with a completely sold out arena on Friday night. 17,335 people. My wife, both my daughters, Cecily's whole team, friends of Avery's, lots of folks there. And everyone said it was just incredible. Awesome vibe. Unfortunately, the team just didn't play well. They got blown out 5-2. No Hillary. Injured list? Yeah. I don't know what happened. I'm going to guess that was a, hey, I'm kind of tired. Hillary's nearing the end of her career. This is probably going to be her last year. She was definitely moving a little faster in the Olympics than I've seen her with the Torrent so far this year. That extra energy needed a couple of days off. She also then went to SNL along with Megan Keller. And they were both on there with the Hughes brothers. So that was a cool situation as well. They'll play in Ottawa. And apparently our boys team woke up, huh? Apparently. Kraken played pretty well. They played a much different style game. A lot of pucks to the net, Brock, on Saturday night. Jordan Eberle had two. Elias Pedersen blocked by Eberle. He has open ice. Here comes the captain right in. He scores! Hey, hey, what do you say? Jordan Eberle. There you go. That was one of two. It looked like he had three, but they later changed one of those goals and gave it to Beneers. Stevenson and Dunn with the other couple. They will host Carolina at home tonight. 23-game sprint here. 23 games. All that guy left. Yeah. Carolina's good, too. Carolina's good. Yeah, so go out and do your thing. That's everything you need to know. I think I am. I think I got my guy, though. I'll give you, again, some guys that jumped out to me as kind of Seahawky kind of guys. But, you know, every year I kind of got my guy. Yeah, give me one. Tell me now. Will you tell me who it is now? Don't make me wait. You sure? Yeah, I don't want to wait. Jacob Rodriguez. Jacob Rodriguez. Yeah. Okay, who is he? He's a linebacker from Texas Tech. Three years ago when I saw him the first time, I'm like, I love this story. Former quarterback, right? Athlete, ball hawk, married to a – she flies, I think, the helicopters in the Army. Like, ooh, this guy's kind of bad. And then the next year he was really good And then this year he was an All-American And then I was like, is he kind of low foot to Tupu? Is he going to run like 4.9? Oh, he put on a show Look at this mustache Wow, I like him now too Look at this big power stache Wow The hair, the mustache The whole thing Oh wow, Brock, you did not tell me that I mean, you're burying the lead This guy can play too Bring him in. First round pick number 32. He can play. Bring in anyone with this kind of mustache. All right. We take a quick break. We'll come back with Ryan Sloan. The young Mariner pitcher is confident and hilarious. I like this kid. It's next on Brock and Salk. Highlights don't win games. The full box score does. I'm Brock Heward and most business leaders aren't short on data. They're short on clarity. Numbers are scattered across ERP, CRMs, and spreadsheets, making decisions reactive instead of confident. And that's not how great businesses are built. Marquee IQ brings all your data together into one clear view, even if it lives in disconnected systems or offline, so you can see what's really happening and act faster. Stop running your business on highlights. Get the full picture. Visit data that wins.com to see what Marquee IQ can do. Stream every Seattle sports show with the Seattle sports app brought to you by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Get new videos, podcasts, and articles on the Seahawks and Mariners from your favorite Seattle sports personalities daily. From the Quantum Fiber Studio, this is Brock and Salk. Weekdays 6 to 10 on Seattle Sports and 97.3 FM HD2. Well, Brock, this was something we knew we wanted to do. It was on the list of guys we really wanted to talk to once we got down here. And then you see them, and then you see them throw the bullpen, And then you're like, yeah, we've got to make sure we talk to Ryan Sloan. And he's kind enough to sit down with us right now. Good morning. Good morning. Well, I see it in the face. I said to Salk earlier, and that's Mike Salk, Brock Heward. I said to Salk, like, he's younger than my middle daughter. How is that possible? Well, it means you're old. Huh? It just means you're old. Yeah, I'm almost 50. I started very young. But, man, you're 20? 20. Just turned 20. Yeah. Can you give us the, like, one-minute bio? You grew up in Illinois? So I grew up in Oswego, Illinois. Ended up moving to Elmhurst. Lived there. Went there in middle school. Is that a Chicago suburb? Yeah, it's right outside Oak Brook. So I'm probably 30, 40 minutes away from the city with no traffic. But with traffic, you know how it gets. Ends up being an hour, hour and a half. Went to high school there. Was committed to Wake Forest. And ended up getting drafted by the Mariners. Bears fan? Not diehard, but yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cubs fan growing up? Definitely. Okay. Definitely a Cubs fan. All right. So we're starting to get a sense of Blackhawks fan? Hockey? Don't care? Not a huge hockey guy. Not interested? Bulls fan? You're kind of too late for the junior. Yeah, I'm not a big basketball guy either. Or a college basketball guy. Did you play other sports growing up? I played basketball. My mom played basketball in college. So I ended up playing basketball up until my freshman year of high school and then cut it. So why baseball? I thought I was better at it than basketball, to be honest. I just when you're playing basketball like I was a power forward and then you're going up against guys that are 6'8 and 6'9 I just don stand a chance you know I better stature for baseball I say so Ryan What cool about this rotation is guys from everywhere All sorts different backgrounds as a son That a baseball player and pick the brain of Logan and all the rest of them Some of the past linear most of the past not particularly linear Were you a perfect game guy? Were you like an all-baseball all the time and go pursue it in all those avenues? Yeah, yeah. I was lucky enough to be invited to all the stuff, I guess you could put it. So I ended up going to the perfect game stuff, the PBR stuff, some of the All-American games, It's just a good opportunity to go and compete and be around guys that are really similar mindset in the way I am. Just to get to know everyone. And at 12, were you the kid with the big legs throwing 80 miles an hour? No, no. I was always pretty tall. Started to kind of grow in my body probably my freshman and sophomore year. Started putting weight on. And then I was always lengthy, so just put weight on and kind of got me where I am. But were you the kid that was throwing harder than everybody else? No, not really. Not really. Not really. I was always kind of like, I'd say I was always above average and then just continuously ticked up every year. With some of the weight and some of the strength and growing into your body? Exactly. Exactly. How, this is coming. There's only a matter of time before Brock asks about the quad, so here we go. Just do it. Is it appropriate? It's your thing. It doesn't matter. You've never cared whether it's appropriate or not. When did you know you were quadzilla? i still don't think i know um to be honest i think there's some guys that got me out there because you try to put jeans on or you try to put things on i don't like shopping you try to put your prom tucks on i'm not a fan of shopping for pants anymore you know honestly um i just can't do it yeah it makes me too angry i go try on seven pairs and none of them fit and then i'm just frustrated the rest of the day and therefore you know you're then quadzilla at that point when seven pairs of pants don't fit. Happens to me too. I try on jeans and I'm like, oh, why are these eight inches too long at the bottom? That doesn't feel right. Well, yours is a little more of the waist. It's a little bit of a different challenge. Yeah, a little bit more. I get that. So is that just kind of God-given or do you work your tail off to develop your legs? I mean, I... I had a good workout program at home. I mean, I started working out as a freshman, so just got a good group of guys, got after it five, six times a week and I guess that's how I got here. Okay, so right there, hold on one sec. So you have young listeners. We have this in our audience. We have baseball coaches. Like, they want to know, like, hey, man, I got a youngster that wants to do this. And so your freshman year, you're like, all right, basketball is not real. This is getting real. I want to do this. So what was the workload kind of through your freshman year and into high school? What did that really look like, that commitment? Yeah, for me, I mean, it was kind of a weird time because right when that was going on, it was COVID. So very weird time. So, you know, I was just trying to get in the gym as much as I could. I think the thing that gets kind of skipped over is the working out in the season. I think that's kind of where you can get an edge, I guess you could say. Like nowadays you go travel for a tournament that you play Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you come home. So I think those midweek workouts are really important because you don't see a lot of guys in there midweek. You know, it's pretty dead. You know, everyone's recovering from the weekend. And, you know, I think that's kind of where you can get that edge, you know. So just getting in there as much as you can and getting your work in. What's it like throwing a Cal Rawling? Special, special. You know, it's very surreal. You know, get drafted, what, 2024 and already thrown to a guy who had 60 home runs. You know, it's pretty special. But thrown to him, just big target. It's nice. It's really nice. He is a big target. So you get drafted in 24. Take us back to that day. Did you know the Mariners? Were you on the radar? Did he have a sense? Is that where Ryan Sloan wanted to be? Yeah. Obviously, I knew of all the guys that have came through, knew that they were really good with pitchers. You know, the draft was kind of interesting for me, being a right-handed high school arm. You know, not a ton of teams like taking them, not a ton of teams, you know, like drafting them at all, especially in the first round. So there was a wide range where I could go. We had a little bit of a party. I remember sitting there just being like, wow. You know, I thought I had a chance to go in the first round, you know, and I'd end up falling all the way. You see guys that I knew I was better than go before me. And, you know, it was just kind of weird, you know. And then eventually I got lucky enough and they called and, you know, all that stress kind of went away like that. Was it a hard decision to sign rather than go to Wake Forest? I kind of knew if I was going to go on the first day, I probably was going to go. I thought I was mature enough to go. I didn't think I needed college. per se. So if I kind of went in that first day and got the money I was looking for, I thought I would go. You're wearing your spring training hat. I was trying to look underneath to see if you had the names of all those guys written down inside your hat of the motivation of everybody got drafted ahead of you. So then you come and you're again only been here for a little while. What is your experience been like coming up through this Mariner system? Yeah, it's been great. It's been awesome. I mean, you know, they do such a good job of just giving you confidence because that's, I mean, especially pitching-wise, I mean, hitting-wise, it's probably even more. How do they do that? How do they instill confidence? Just, you know, they make it so simple that it's almost hard to believe in it. You know, they show you, hey, your stuff's really good. It plays at the big league level. How do they show you that? With numbers? Yeah, numbers, video. I mean, they have a pitch grading system, which is nice. So 100 is average, and you see a couple pitches above 100, and you're like, okay, I'm pretty good, you know? And then it's like, they just tell you, throw it down the middle. You know, we're never not going to get mad. We're not going to get mad if you throw it down the middle. So I kind of just adopted that. I'm like, I'm going to throw everything down the middle and let it do its thing. And, you know, I'm going to end up being pretty good. And then, yeah, I'm watching a bullpen of you today. And I was right behind Dan. And Shannon Dreher was there. And I don't know, you were working some sliders, some different counts. You look like some of your off-speed stuff. And Shannon Dreher whispers in my ear, paint. because every ball was not in the middle of the plate. Every one of them was painting that. And to boost your confidence a little bit more, we'll try to help the Mariners out. Cal was here with us the other day, and we asked about you and Cade, to be fair. And he was like, yeah, what stands out, these guys put the ball where they want to put it, not just throwing a strike down the middle. So you can say down the middle. It was like you don't want to stay right in the middle. No, yeah, I think for me, I just started down the middle. I'm trying to throw it right down the middle, and I know that with the way my stuff moves, it's not going to end up down the middle a lot of times. So when I say down the middle, I'm just trying to aim down the middle. So take us through the progression of last season. Yeah. Long season. Was it? I mean, you know, I didn't realize how much time you actually spend at the field. It's a long time at the field. You get there at 12. I didn't know you get there at 12 for a 630 game. So definitely have to get used to that. But other than that, it was great. It was great. I got to never been in California a long time. Got to see pretty much all of California, I guess you could say, and ended up getting moved up to Everett at the end of the year, which was great. And, you know, just kind of learned throughout it. Just kept learning and kept trying to take in everything and just try to get better. Who were some teammates you bonded with along the way? Yeah, it was unfortunate. One of my good buddies, Matt Tiberia, I was good friends with. He ended up going down with TJ midway through. But Calvin Shapar ended up going down halfway through, ended up meeting back up with him in Everett, though. So we kind of lost our group, but everyone ended up getting up in Everett, and then Matt Ellis, too, catcher. You know, we were all good guys. So you finish in Everett. You come to camp here this spring, and the mindset is what? Just learn. Just learn. You got so many brains around here and good minds. I mean, pretty much all the arms here are in the position that I want to be in. So they just have unlimited wisdom and stuff that I just haven't been able to learn yet. So just trying to be able to learn and take what I can from it and go give it a try. Is there one guy in the rotation that you look at and say, my stuff is similar and I want to learn a little bit how they use it, or my mindset is similar and I want to understand how they use their head? Whose brains do you pick? Yeah, I think that's a good question. Good question, Mike. I get paid to ask a good question. Yeah. Don't use my line. That's Brock's line. No, but, I mean, I love Cade's mindset on the mound. So I've been able to spend a lot of time with him just talking and going back and forth, you know. I mean, he's a dog, you know. So getting to talk to him, you know, it's how to punch guys out, and I want to punch guys out too. So getting able to talk to him and then, you know, obviously Kirby just speaks for itself how many strikes he throws, and I think that's the kind of mentality I want to embody, just throwing strikes. You know, you have confidence in your stuff to throw all your pitches for strikes and just keep doing that day in, day out. And Logan's a really nice guy, but he's kind of weird. I mean, does he recruit you? Is he recruiting you to use all these things into his cult? I got to ask what it's about. I haven't asked yet. It's the R2-D2 ball over there. Yeah, I know. Just grab that thing and shake it. Just shake it. I mean, look at all. We watch him, and it's like a, I don't know, it's circus. And we love Logan to death. Yeah. Although Salt kind of pissed him off yesterday. Not really. A little bit. He's like a circus performer with all that stuff out there. Yeah, he looks like he's the one that does things a little bit different, but that's the beauty of baseball and pitching, right? Like everybody can do it differently. Okay, so what, you know, you want to learn, you want to absorb, you want to take all of this in. And ultimately, would you like to start in AA and, like, let this thing eat and rip? Or do you have any of those conversations or thoughts? Yeah, honestly, for me, I just think everything is going to take care of itself. You know, I just think if I am consistent in my work and my routine and my intentionality throughout the days, everything is going to figure itself out. And it's as simple as that. You know, just got to go out, put myself in a spot to be successful and go out and compete. And, you know, it's just going to end up being in a good spot. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't leave and ask with this because some are curious. I'm not just the only guy that's curious about quadzilla and legs and everything. What does a leg day workout look like for Ryan Salon? Yes, you are. I'm not the only one. All right. No, Daniel's listening right now. Daniel Hill's listening. You might be the only one. All right. What's a leg day workout look like? You know, obviously right now they're a little different. It's throwing is ramped up. But in the offseason, I get after it. I get after it. Squatting, deadlift in one leg. You name it. Give me some numbers. You name it. What do we do? Deadlift in the offseason, front squat, reverse lunge. Front squat what? What do we do? Weight and reps. Front squat, I'm not a big one-rep max guy. No, you shouldn't be. I think if you want to number, I think I got up to 315. For reps? Yeah. Yeah, just for reps. Just for reps. Sure. Front squat. Three or four, yeah. Sounds about right. Yeah. Hey, last thing for me, and we spent a lot of time asking guys about this last year, but most everyone we've talked to this year we already kind of know and have gotten to know, your parents, when you get drafted, as you move up through the organization what has been their counsel their advice their reaction What is that relationship like Yeah it been great I mean both my parents played college sports which obviously helps a lot You said your mom played basketball My mom played basketball at Austin Peay and my dad played baseball at Austin Peay. Cool. Yeah. So, I mean, they've been through it. They know. They know what it takes. They know it's a grind. So just being able to lean on them, talk to them, you know, get out whatever feelings and emotions I have and just run it through them has been great. And, you know, they've been real supportive. I mean, they come out here every once in a while, come out to where I'm playing at, and it's always great to see them. When you say emotions and get through them, you also mentioned you didn't realize it started at noon for six hours ahead or whatever it is. Did you get busted on that? Like, did something happen, or he was just like, oh, whoa, I didn't need to be here. You didn't show up at, like, 3 o'clock. No, we got the schedule. I remember getting the schedule. I'm like, wow, that's a rule. I'm going to have a lot of time to kill. So, I mean, I had to find a hobby that I could do at the field. What did you find? I collect cards. Cards? Yeah, cards. I started collecting cards. What kind of cards? Baseball, football, basketball. What's their most valuable card? Probably my own. Yeah. Honestly. You bought the stock in it. Oh, yeah. Just tops or whoever. Do they give you your own card? No. Do you have to buy it? You have to find it? They won't give you your own card? Mm-mm. Well, that's ridiculous. Mm-mm. Well, I'm offended on your behalf. Come on, Major League Players Association. Let's get on this. I'll leave it with this. You know what I'm feeling right now? Remember Steve Rabel with the Seahawks and at their parade, and he introduced everybody, and he introduced Jackson Smith and Jigba. I don't know if you're a football guy. Oh, yeah. Seahawks, yeah. And Steve Rabel said, the smile of an angel, the heart of an assassin. Wow. And I'm looking at a young guy here. I see the face of a young guy, but don't you just kind of feel the competitive fire of an assassin? Well, we're hoping to see you at some point soon up in Seattle. We can't wait. Thanks for sitting down with us. For sure. I appreciate you guys. There's Ryan Sloan. I enjoyed that. I hope everybody else out there did as well. I found him to be very entertaining. How old did we say he was? 20? 20. There's no way he's 20. I mean, somebody pointed out that he was three years old when the Brock and Salk show started. Maybe two. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you who just physically, just totally physically. Maybe I'm going to say this and you're going to barf. Hard barf. Get that out of your mouth. Never say that again. but just physically there are some roger clemens to him it's funny i thought about that that was because bob and dave asked me for a comp i i see i get what you're saying i think just just the massive massive thigh power yeah you see an upper body i think he are you sure no who's taller this kid seems taller really i think of roger as being wider this kid is that was at the end. Maybe. Maybe I'm just thinking at the end. But you see his upper body too. It's not like he's narrow. He's going to grow into it. Like he's going to be an absolute monster on that mound. It's so funny. That was the first name that came to my mind. Was it really? I didn't say it because I started thinking about Fat Roger and all that. But I had the exact same thought, Brock. The Roger Clemens comp definitely came to mind. Why do we do this? Why do we do this? Why do we even bother like arguing on a show when we just agree and think the same way about everything? I don't know. But I'll just ask you some football questions. We'll call Blue 88. This is Brock and Salk's Blue 88. We're going to go red, right, tight, close, sprint, left, G, U corner, halfback, flat, on one, on one, ready. Brock Heward tackles three football questions as only he can. Blue idiot. Now here's your hosts, Brock Heward and Mike Salk. All right, Brock, three good football questions. Let's start here. How's the NFL taking a page from college football? Is that a good idea? Well, in two instances, Salk. The NFL here, and it's going to begin in one week. My goodness gracious. Like this is the week that everybody, right, they go to the combine, and then they all go back, and they start to work, and they start to talk to their buddies, and they start planning, and they start putting their whole deal together. And the legal tampering period begins next Monday. And then by that point, we kind of know what deals are and where people are going. And it is going to be, here's where it's going to be like college football. One man's trash is another man's treasure. and you're going to see it repeatedly and especially at the quarterback position Kyler Murray, Tua, Geno, Morris sent the same note that I read and I'm going to get to it here in just a second. Like, yep, one man's just trash. It's another man. Oh, we can turn this around. We can make this happen. And then secondly, and I think this is a little bit of the Sam Darnold effect if that's the real negative end of it, the other side of it's like, hey, man, especially quarterback, we're going to turn that experience and we're going to turn it positive. Fernando Mendoza spent three years at Cal, and he was okay. He was a good player, but then he became elite and became great at Indiana. Sam Darnold spent eight years in the wilderness, and then he went to Minnesota and Seattle, and he became great. And they're going to convince themselves that Kyler Murray and Zach Wilson and Kirk Cousins and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da can still be made whole somewhere else. That will be happening over the next couple weeks, I can assure you that. All right, question number two. all right 18 hours of combine watching brock hopefully you fast forwarded a fair amount so that you didn't just i did uh yes good uh what did you sort of learn about this class this is a really really traitsy fast class now brian who's going to come on with us nimhauser aka hawk blogger is going to say well it's because the slower guys didn't run that is why These numbers were so extraordinary, and they were. The NFL posted this after the combine. The DBs, Salk, these are the average 40 times. These are the average 40 times in this group. DBs, 4-4, 4-4-4. Wide receivers, 4-4-4. Running backs, 4-4-5. Linebackers, 4-5-5. You know what those were? The fastest times on average at all of those position groups at the combine. Never. They were fast. Fast, fast. Everywhere. I mean, every single receiver ran 4-4. If you didn't run 4-4, you're like, poor guy. but they didn't run, right? I mean, isn't that the whole thing? I mean, I think the talk blogger would be right, but all the slow people didn't run. But the majority still ran, and all of the... But that's going to change the average. It will change the average, but it's not like 20 receivers didn't run. Denzel Boston didn't run. He did his jump. He's going to probably run still right near that in the 4-4s, but he wanted to assure a really good time. There were still a large chunk that ran, so yes, it would maybe affect the average a little bit. but still and again look at the the guys that just blew it absolutely out of the water did you see the tight end kenyon sadiq out of oregon i did see what he did yeah it's like not human it was honestly dk metcalf nicky man worried like sunny styles did the same thing at linebacker like you know so there were still those guys at the tip of the spear that you just kind of shake your head the training has become incredible it's the same reason why ryan sloan's throwing 99 at 20 years old because the training, the equipping, the coaching, the teaching, these guys are hitting in their physical ceilings so much faster and so much younger. And to me, that was certainly on display over the weekend. All right, question number three. All right, first blush reaction, Brock, to the combine workouts, the pressers. I know you talk to people over the weekend. Give me some guys that look and sound like Seahawks, and I hope that the guy with the mustache is on that list. Jacob, I did not put on this list. I've got like five or six. We'll go through this over the course of the week. Maybe I'll give you one a day. How about we do that this one? That sounds great. I'll give you one Combine Hero a day, but today I'm going to start by giving you two because there were two sound bites I just really enjoyed. One of them you're going to really enjoy as well because of the story, but give me cut number 14. This is Brandon Cissé. He's a corner. You've seen him on some mocks to the Seahawks. Now, he did not run. He jumped out of this world, but tell me this does not sound like a Seahawk when he speaks. Brandon, do you get a chance to watch a lot of the Seahawks defense? Like I heard you mention Devin Witherspoon before. Did you watch Nicky Minwari at all? Like what was that like? So I actually played 7-on-7 with Nick at high school. I was at the NFC Championship when they played the Rams to go watch him. So it was actually one of the best environments I've seen in a long time. So yeah, I've seen the Seahawks. I've studied their defense. Have you had a chance to meet with them at all? Yes, I have. How'd that go? It went great. Awesome. And did you talk to Nick at all getting into the combine? Can I talk to Nick at all? So have you talked at all, like getting ready for the combine? Oh, yes. I talked to him a few days ago. So, yeah. We keep in contact. No, we keep in contact. We play for him. That's right. Guy that talks ball. Guy that loves ball. Guy that comes out to the end of the championship game because I got experience ball. I got to go see that place. He's big. He's physical. So he's going to come up and hit you. And then the other guy, this is a different story. This is the receiver out of Texas A&M. Again, I've seen him mocked in the late first round because of what he can do. Rashid Shahid, like not as big. unbelievably fast. Listen to KC Concepcion. My meeting with the Bills, it went really well. You know, I'm actually from, you know, well, I was actually born in New York. You know, 585, you know, I moved out of Australia when I was about five. You know, that is the Bills is actually my dad's favorite team. So, you know, I've been watching them, you know, I have been watching since I was young. I've been seeing Josh Allen. He's one of the best quarterbacks in the league. I'll be grateful. You know what happens after that, Salk, right? You know what the social media world does? Totally puts this kid on blast. What they don't understand, he's got a speech impediment. He wasn't afraid to get up there and talk. He wasn't afraid to take the worst of the worst in the social realms that are going to come out and rip them because they don't know that. And even some of Titus' buddies were like, hey, did you guys hear it? I'm like, yeah, you guys know he has a speech impediment? And they were like, a what? Yeah, he's got a speech impediment, man. He stutters. And do you know the kind of cojones it takes to step up to that podium and do that? I like that, man. That smells and feels like a gritty, tough, competitive. Yeah, somebody who's had to overcome something. Overcomer. Yeah, absolute overcomer. That's really well said. All right, that is today's Blue 88. I like that, Brock. Thank you for those. I had heard, actually, both of those amazingly. Oh, look at you. Well, hey, what can I tell you? Old and lazy, not so much, I guess, huh? Well, I didn't watch any of the combine, I'll tell you that much, because I'm not interested. But I, and by the way, it doesn't sound like I missed much. It doesn't sound like anybody did anything. Do you know that the left tackle for Miami is a 6'9", 360-pound human being? Sure. And I think at the combine back in the day, you ran 5'3". The Seahawk combine handheld, if I remember right. Sounds right. He ran 5'3". Okay. At 6'9". Well, we're pretty similar. 60 pounds. I do have the numbers on Ryan Sloan and Roger Clemens. So Ryan Sloan is listed as 6'5", 220. He's not 6'5". He wasn't as tall as me. So call him 6'4", 220. 220? Okay. Yeah, we'll go 6'4", 230. You want to hear a number that's just not true? Roger Clemens was listed at 6'4", 205. Yeah, no. Nope. No. Maybe coming out of high. 255? 245? I bet you're coming out of Texas. He was 6'4", 220. Maybe middle school back in Katy, Texas, but I don't know about 205. So there's some similarities there, Salky. Some similarities. I like it. All right. A couple pieces of news, Brock, should remind us of something very obvious. It's next on Brock and Salk.