Hour 1 - MLB's Challenge System Results Through Five Games, Jason Benetti, Mariners Extend Colt Emerson

Get in the freaking arrow from the quantum fiber studio. This is Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports. I don't read the Internet guy. Take the bull by the hands and brook wire. You are and brook. You are now here are your hosts Brock Huard and Mike Saul. All right. Hello morning, everybody. It is the Brock and Salk show Seattle Sports on 7 10. Seattle Sports dot com Seattle Sports app podcast platforms like, you know, Apple podcast, pretty big one. Can leave us a nice little message there. If you want, we'll review five stars. Say something mean if you want. I don't care, but just leave a five star review because one day, one day, one day, we'll get to a 4.7 rating. I mean, we won't, but I would be really nice if we did. It would be really cool, but, you know, need your help. So if you are a time shifted listener, you like to listen later. That's a good way to help us out a little bit and say thank you. Well, I say 97 three for sure HD two. That's the way to do it. Go to 97 three on your FM dial. Wait for the HD part to click in and then you go to number two and you can hear the show in your car, on your car radio, in crystal clear, high definition. And of course, YouTube so that you can see us and say hi. I thankfully still have all of my limbs, at least the ones I had yesterday. I was worried a little bit about frostbite after spending a half hour outside with Lyle before the game. It was really windy there last night. I'll just say this. I'm not surprised it was a two one game. My only surprises that it wasn't one nothing. That was a really tough environment to hit. I mean, to play baseball in in general, but especially to hit. I mean, even Lyle was going no coat. Lyle was wearing a sweatshirt, no coat. It was it was insanity. Lyle, you were either the toughest or stupidest person I know. As usual, it's probably the latter. Yeah. I mean, there were some you own a coat. Probably. What do you mean? Probably somewhere. So you've you. You don't know if you own a coat. I mean, I'm sure one exists. I don't wear it very often. Yesterday would have been a day for it. I got to tell you, it was it was very cold out on the field. And I saw Lyle and I went down to the ballpark just because I wanted to see people. Right. I had a chance to really focus on it all weekend long. I was gone, right? I was in Vancouver, so I wasn't able to get to any of the games. Just kind of be around the people that are around the team. I enjoy that. I like seeing, you know, Divish and Jude and Daniel Kramer and Shannon and all the folks that are down there. And I got the chance to talk to them. They were all hiding upstairs. Let me be clear. None of them were on the field when I got there. I saw them upstairs. And I was looking for some of the Mariners folks that I like to see. I like to always see Tim Hevely who's been there a long time, had a PR and other folks down there. And yeah, there was nobody, just me, Lyle and TJ and Shannon and Dave Sims, who was in town. It was nice to see Dave and I ran into some other folks that I know. So it was good to be down there, but man, it was the wind was blowing in. Let's just say that. And it was colder on the Mariners side than it was on the Yankee sideline. So good on them for, you know, for, for, for fighting through it and battling through it, even that big dude, the big lefty weathers. And it took him 15 pitches or so before he started hitting up or 90s because I'm sure it took him a few minutes to kind of warm up that arm. Didn't take, didn't take Louise Castillo too long to get into the groove. He was awesome last night. And I just, I just really enjoyed watching that game. Just enjoyed it. It was a fun game to watch. Move pretty quick, especially considering the Yankees were involved. And usually their games are not quick, right? They find a way to make everything take forever. And I just really, just really thought that the Mariners played some pretty good baseball. With a couple of small exceptions. Are we at some point going to have to talk about Brandon Donovan's defense at third base? Is that going to be a conversation at some point? I hope not. But they're just like a couple of little. I always have faith in what Perry Hill can do if you give it a little more time. Uh huh. Good. Me too. I'm just, it's not a conversation today. Today's a conversation about a walkoff hit, Cal Raleigh pinch hitting. Today's a conversation about Louise Castillo and his 1500th strikeout. And how great he looked because a healthy and confident and dominant Louise Castillo. Again, another one of these things that we didn't get to see last year that I think would really, really add quite a bit more to what this team is capable of. So like there were so many great things about what we call young and his three hits, like seeing them find ways against lefties, which is not going to be the strength of this team this year. All those things kind of jump out, but I will say I've got a little bit of a watch Donovan unbelievable with the bat. And you saw it again last night, a huge hit to move Rivas from first to third and really put the Yankees in a bind in the, in the ninth inning. What he does for the team is tremendous. He's trying to make that move to third base. And right now he looks like he's trying to make that move to third base. I thought that ball was hit pretty hard. That one was, but it just, it just kind of, it's that it's the bunt the other day. It's the two different pop ups that he wasn't able to find. Like it's just a bunch of those play. They just add up. I don't think he's bad. I just said he looks like he's making the transition. So I have a little eye on that. But ultimately, you know, look, this is a story of beating the Yankees of getting above 500 for the first time this year. And hopefully they will never go back below it. Beat these Yankees a couple more times, head off to Anaheim, do your damage against the bad Anaheim team and off you go. Like that. This is, this is how you start fast. So hopefully the start of more to come. I couldn't help, but you know, as I watched last night, the thing that really starts to jump out to me is just what it's like watching ABS and watching the challenge system. Lyle, you and I have talked about it quite a bit leading up to it. And I've been trying to really reserve judgment until they're kind of into the swing of it and I get a sense as to what it is really like. And just watching it last night, it is generally not disruptive and sort of exciting when they challenge a call. It is generally not disruptive and sort of exciting. When the Yankees challenged for in an inning. And by the way, they were right. So like, I'm not like complaining about it, but I did start to feel like in that moment, it took away from some of the momentum of the game. But okay, like I get the sense that's going to be a lot fewer and far between what I'm curious about. And I want to ask Passon about this when he joins us at 830 today is like, will we see, will we see the umpires start to react? So I'm watching last night. They had how many challenges were right at the bottom of the zone? Three of the four or something like that were all right at the very bottom of the zone. He was getting them wrong. The ump had his strike zone too low. Right. And they kept throwing, you know, pay Castillo's thrown sinkers or whatever it was at the bottom of the zone. And the Yankees are saying that's a ball and they were right. Did Esther Brook, right? He's the ump last night. Did he start to adjust? I didn't really, I kept looking for it and it was hard for me to note. I didn't really notice another pitch that was right on the edge that he got right like that for a ball. But I am curious to see if a few of these challenges, especially early ish in the game, if they will make the umpires start to adjust as they're like, Hey, look, it looks like a strike to me, but clearly it's a ball. So I'm going to have to adjust my strike zone and the way I'm calling it in the middle of a game or else I'm going to keep getting embarrassed out here. I mean, ultimately, wouldn't that be ideal if they corrected on their own? You would think there's some guys like CB Buckner who, well, he won't do anything to correct it. Apparently, a Uhenios Suarez embarrassed him this week and the crowd loved it. Yeah. He just seems so stubborn. I wonder how that would go. But a guy like, I mean, I don't know, Mike Esther Brook at all. I don't know whether he's a good ump or a bad ump or whatever. It wasn't ump at all yesterday. I'm looking forward to his umpire scorecard. It was not very good, but did it get better based on the challenge? System because after they challenged those four, they didn't have to challenge anymore. Is that because, you know, he got lucky after that. I don't know that that sort of here's Buster only on kind of the first weekend or so here of the ABS system. I think it's going pretty smoothly and watching it play out in spring training. I think the players first off, they like the fact that if there's egregious calls, they can have them overturn. You know, Terak school will said to me in spring training, I'm not going to challenge unless it's something right down the middle. And it's obvious and they like having that club in their back that you can get potentially cross road decisions turned around. I did not anticipate the drama that you would have in the park. You know, the other day you mentioned a CB Buckner game, the way the crowd got into that where a UAN oSWARE has challenges on one call to extend in a bat. And he's right. And the crowd roars. And then the next call he challenges and he's right again. The crowd was louder for that than any other time in that game. I think that everyone is kind of on board and understanding how this could help the product because you get important calls made correctly. Yeah. I mean, ultimately getting the calls right is what matters. And thankfully most of the ones that they called and overturned were significantly wrong. I just, I still think that you need some sort of a gray area right around the edges of the plate where you just say, yeah, the call stands. There's no way to, you know, there's no need to get it down to the millimeter. Let's just say the call stands, the umpire was close enough. The NFL says it has to be like overwhelming. Yeah. I have an evidence to overturn. It's not overwhelming. It's close. It's like it could be a ball. It could be a strike. It's right on the edge. Give me a half inch or I don't know what the right number is, but give me a half the inch, an inch of gray area where we just say, yeah, you don't get to overturn that the call stands. But when Esther Brook is two and a half inches wrong, overturn it. Let's go. I thought it worked pretty well. So ultimately, Lyle, I think you've probably been more right on this than me. But I would like to see some sort of a, some sort of a gray area. Call stands. I'm good. Okay. I know. A ball in a strike to strike. Do your job. Yeah, but it's not. I think that it's okay for an umpire to have their own strikes on. Anyway, let's move on. It was a good day for the Mariners. They get the walkoff win. We'll play it for you. So, you know, exactly how it sounded next on Brock and Salk. 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 ERP, CRM and spreadsheets, making decisions reactive instead of confident. And that's not how great businesses are built. Marquis 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 datathewins.com to see what Marquis IQ can do. We are Seattle Sports. 7 10 a.m. on your radio streaming through the Seattle Sports app. Get new videos, podcasts and articles on the Seahawks and Mariners from your favorite Seattle Sports personalities daily. 15 minutes past every hour with Brock and Salk. Presented by Marquis Data. Here's what you need to know. Up first. All right, five games in. We've got our first walk off of the year. And who else but Cal Raleigh. The look in by Blackbird. Here we go. The stretch of the right handers to one to Cal. Swing and a shot over the bag at first fair ball. The Mariners win it. Here comes Leo Rivas to score. Cal Raleigh with a walk off single. And the Mariners beat the Yankees tonight. Two to one in the bottom of the ninth inning. Cal Raleigh with a run bad and a shadow over the bag at first. Down the right field line. And the Mariners with their first walk off win of the 2026 season. And the big dumper comes through on the clutch. Yeah, he sure does. After getting the early part of the night off, he slid in as the DH in the seventh inning as a pinch hitter and came back around in the ninth to get the win. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, when you have big moments like that, that does, you know, give you confidence. And, you know, he just put up a really good app out there and got a pitch he could handle, put a really good swing on it. And, you know, I think that's something definitely he builds on. And, you know, it's tough when you're sitting and then have to come into a game like that. But, you know, I really give him a lot of credit tonight that he was able to do that and come in there. Not only come in, but come in in a situation, you know, the first time up, you know, with a runner at third there and then the last time up with a runner at third and putting up a really strong at bat. I do wonder whether or not it was helpful for Cal to have had the first pinch hit at bat in order to then get a hit in the second at bat. I don't know. Or maybe, you know, someone like Mark Dorosa could learn about, I don't know, trying to pinch hit Cal at some point in a big game when you've got a big spot available. A lot of other people get a ton of credit. I thought Leo Rivas with a big head, Brennan Donovan for setting the table there in the ninth. Luis Castillo was virtually unhittable. Six shutout innings in the cold, windy air. Just two hits allowed. Neither of them were hit hard. Seven strikeouts, including his 1500th of his career. He was awesome. So much fun. I love watching that dude pitch and seeing him come up with an honor. That was nice. And in the motion, the one, two to judge. Half cut, did he go? Yes, he did. Strike free. Judge goes down for Luis Castillo. Strikeout 1500. And he does it against Aaron Judge. Yeah, that's a pretty good way to get it done. Logan Gilbert, Max Fried will go tonight. Here's the second thing you need to know. Our owner's meetings this week in the NFL, that's always a chance for the coaches and GMs and everyone else to get together. We got to see Mike McDonald and the big coach's picture. He was sitting with the Harbos, if you were wondering. And we got some updates like Tori Horton will be limited this spring, but should be good to go for training camp. They also expect their older players to be able to play after giving them some time off. So that's good. DeMarcus Lawrence obviously would be included in there. Still no official word on whether he's returning, but between hearing from Jonathan Hankins and then hearing from Mike McDonald yesterday, I would say that's some pretty good signs. We also heard about the messaging and Mike has a really difficult task ahead of him, trying to message after winning a Super Bowl. I think the focus is like, let's double down back on the process over what, you know, let's skip steps on where we need to go. I remember having the conversations really on my mind with you guys. I was like, hey, what in order for us to be, you know, have those conversations about, you know, the vision and playoff and things, we have to become a championship team. Oh, we're a new team. We have to kind of re-become the team that we're kind of like guessing to be without people to appreciate it. But there's a lot of new pieces, and I think that's where the focus is. Yeah, it'll be a challenge for him, no doubt, but hey, like what a great challenge to have, right? Try to figure out how to message after winning a Super Bowl. Shout out to our friend KJ Wright. He was named linebackers coach for the 49ers, a promotion for him. I'm sure that was well deserved. Here's the third thing you need to know. Are we ready for this? Yes, I will admit. I always wanted my team to be on hard knocks. This show's been on for like, what, 20 years or so? Something like that, 20 years. I've never gotten a chance to watch a team that I'd like to make in Route 4 and follow or cover beyond the show. So I'm psyched for this. Seahawks will make their first ever appearance. On the HBO show, it'll take us behind the scenes this summer. I guess they changed the rule last year, so it used to be you could avoid this by winning, which is one of the reasons Seahawks have never had to do it, but they've changed those rules. So the Seahawks are doing it this year. The Patriots, I guess, are gonna do it next year. Kind of curious, more like you, who's gonna stand out? Yeah, there's always a couple fan favorites, and a lot of times it's not the big name, guys. That's why I was trying to go through the roster. I was like, it's like a Mike Morris or someone gonna pop out. He's pretty funny, I don't know. Or I definitely think that they could love Ad and Dirty. Like, I don't know if you've watched him at training camp, but he's very energetic and animated and fun with the players. Leonard Williams and all the kind of stuff he likes to do off the field. Sometimes they like to do excursions with them. Maybe they go spear fishing with them. If they go spear fishing with Leonard Williams, I mean, that's kind of awesome. Crack and get a big game tonight. They will be in Edmonton, just 10 games left to play. That is everything you need to know. Quarter past every hour here on The Brocken Sulk Show. Yeah, a lot of people disagree on my gray area take. That's okay. Isaac says, so you like ABS, but want some gray area, sort of to keep the tradition and every ump having a zone and trying to figure out that I get it. Yeah, well, thank you. That is what I want. I just feel like we went into this computer era and at some point the home plate ump is just gonna call balls and strikes based on the computer. Yeah, I don't want that. I'm okay with a little bit of this gray area. 425 wants to use his own ABS system to challenge my take. Can't do that. Sulk asked the listeners to vote to love or shove your take. No, they're my takes. I don't care whether you like them or not. I'm not doing this so that you agree with me. I'm telling you what I think. Hopefully it'll make you think a little bit. We'll see. Jason Benedetti is doing a heck of a job. He's got a really cool new job working on these NBC and Peacock broadcasts, which are, you know, pretty advanced and they're doing some really cool new things. We got a chance to talk to him after he got to see the Mariners and we'll play it next on Brocken Sulk. Highlights don't win games. The full box score does. I'm Brock Heard 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 datathetwins.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. Old Windows cast you money and security. Lake Washington Windows and Doors installs energy efficient, high security windows that lower bills and increase protection. With leak armor installation and lifetime warranties, you're protected for life. Choose LakeWashingtonWindows.com today. From the Quantum Fiber Studio. This is Brock and Salk with the 6 to 10 on Seattle Sports and 97 3 FM HD 2. Yeah, the baseball media world a little upside down this year is a lot of stuff has changed and one of the big differences is the addition of NBC Sports and Peacock and Jason Benetti made the jump over there from Fox. And he's kind enough to join us after calling the game last night. Hi, Jason. Good morning. How are you? Hi, Salk. Am I one of the first people to do your show by phone at CTAT? That's a good question. No, actually, no. No, I don't think so. I think we've had others. Did you get my notes? By the way, I sent you a full page of notes on the broadcast last night. Did you get those? Yeah, I did. You know, it is weird, though. They were in the Wing-Dings font. I don't know what you hit. So it was just a bunch of like faces and things like that. I didn't get to read it yet. I was wondering if there was going to be a Booger McFarland vehicle that that's for is that Audivino that was in the bullpen? I was wondering if he was going to go up and down between the bullpens like on a sliding camera. We would call it Otto's auto, right? You know, just put them on a cart and send them along the like the rail cam they have. Yes. Uh huh. Yeah. That was good. What'd you see this weekend? Yeah. What'd you see? You know, I love Brendan Donovan for this team. I think it's a really good get. I think his like level of care about the really small things in baseball is enormous for this team. And I said it last night, but the Cardinals couldn't have used him like the Mariners can use him. And I just think he's got a little bit of that, you know, like forget you sort of in him about the game of baseball. I thought it was really interesting the way Cleveland pitched Julio in the series. I mean, it was 71% fastball, the first three games of the series and coming out of the shoot, throwing a guy that many fastballs. I think they see something based on what their pitchers have. And some of them are cutters, right? So it's not all four seen fastballs, but 71% in the fastball category is is a lot. And I do think too, like both of these teams, Cleveland and the Mariners, like everybody's going to have to use their bullpens some and can, you know, I never like when the Mariners lose an Andres Munoz game for you guys because if you lose those, I mean, you're like double counting, right? Because then you can't use him later on in the series if he's gone two or three. So you basically lose two games on the average, you're like one and a half when you lose an Andres Munoz game. So I thought the one Saturday night heard. But, you know, getting that performance from Emerson Hancock last night, when, you know, Adam Artavino is a is a very analytical, thoughtful guy about the art of pitching and some of his reactions to those sweepers were were pretty high level. So you get to see what's all good. My buddy, what? No, go ahead. You hog it. I was gone all last week. No, go ahead. Jeez, I was just going to say what I like about Hancock is that it's confounding to the idea of trying to project to trying to do projections based on stats and numbers. And I love those efforts. I love Dancim Borski. I love the zip stuff and it's great. It's a worthwhile exercise. But I don't know how you account for a guy developing a sweeper in the off season. You just can't. And so I love. Yeah, I love the idea of confounding those expectations. Totally. And that's why that's why, you know, I'm so interested in how people get pitched early in the season and what people see and what your adjustments are going to be, because, you know, we can evaluate the now. And I evaluate players much more on their willingness to tinker at this point. Because if you do and you find anything, you're going to at least for, you know, I would say like two, three weeks, right? That's all you get out of that as a starting pitcher, because the next time he's on the mound, people are going to be like, oh, yeah, look out for that sweeper and that real riding fastball, you know, and then they're going to have a plan for that. So what's next after that? But, you know, I think this staff is really well built in general, the starting staff. You know, that's not going out on a limb or anything, but I think they are willing to tinker. So I know this guy and we're talking to fairly well, right? Of any guests that we have on, I know this guy. I've been on the road with him for four years. This guy does not fake the funk on the nasty dunk. Like Christian Weber used to say, like he didn't fake it. You know, he doesn't have a producer in his ear telling him what to say. He writes nothing down ahead of time. So it is all top of mind. Benetti, I think you said during the broadcast yesterday, I'll go back to my notes and my emojis that I counted. I think at least four times you said about T-Mobile, this is a beautiful park. And whether it was the drone shots, whether it was some of the really cool pictures we had, it was so refreshing to see a new broadcast, a new set of eyes, new optics, new lenses, all of it. It's really, really neat. But you said multiple times this place is a great place to call a baseball game. Why did it resonate so much? Yeah, I mean, I think the architecture is great. I think it is fascinating to me when ballparks have novel quirks. And I just love the open air while also having a roof. I do think one of the best things a baseball stadium can do is make you feel like you're in that city. And, you know, like everybody talks about seasonal, effective disorder and you guys get some rain and all that stuff. And that's real. But I think like I think the energy of Seattle being like a little off the beaten path, there's there's just a Pacific Northwest vibe in that ballpark. And I think they've kept it up really well. The food is great. The hospitality is high level. But I think it feels like the city to me and it's difficult to explain. But that's the sense that I get when I'm there. And I, you know, I'm in a Seahawks game in forever. But I know how loud it is there and just how much everybody cares. I've walked the concourse at T-Mobile a number of times over the past few years. And the, the array of characters, ages, types of people that you get at a Mariners game is striking to me. It is. You should, you should walk that concourse with Brock. You'll never make it around. No, I'm not. Hey, man, my dad was a husky and I watched you pew all. But then with the Huskies and I just, I loved you and Damon. Thanks, man. What do you think the Huskies are going to do this year? You misunderstand. Actually, these people are saying my dad was. Like they just, they all just had. Oh, that must have brought you in high school, man. I was there. Huh? Is that stoner voice? It's just the voice of a person reminiscing on the nineties. But only from fast times. Reminiscing on the nineties voice. I guess was it cold yesterday at all, though? Was it cold in the park? I only said it's 17 times. No, it was 19. It was 19. And I wouldn't have said it that many times, but they just kept bringing warm drinks. They brought a, they brought a golden retriever over who comfort Adam out of Vito, it felt like. There was like a sled dog that stopped by to after the comfort animal. I mean, it was, it was, it was bracing, but that's the fun part of it. Right? Like you go and sit out and in Los Angeles for an opener and have it be 72 and sunny and all the side, I would rather there be elements. I think that's the best part of baseball and the different thing that it provides. And, you know, I thought it was awesome, but they really like it was like, it was like he was he was at a first aid tent. You know, like there were just more people coming with warm drinks and a brandy. Alexander and there was there was somebody in a smoking jacket playing the saxophone. I don't understand. I'm going to disagree with you on that last part. You have me until the that's one of the things I like about like, I don't think baseball should be played in the cold. I think it's terrible. I think it's a scourge. I think there should be no cold in baseball. Once it drops under like 60 degrees, I think they should just cancel the games. Like that's not how baseball is meant to be played. No, here's why I liked it. Because last time I was at T-Mobile for a national broadcast, the fire alarm went off 17 times. So we need it to be cold in that ballpark. That's pretty funny. They do do a great job. You're right on just keeping up the ballpark in general and making sure that, you know, they kind of stay with everything. They've invested a lot back into it this year. It's the new the new screen, the new Mariner vision. Like they really do an awesome job with that. It's like an underrated cool part about this about this franchise. The top of the the heart of the order did nothing. Right. Julio, Cal, Nailer, I mean, essentially were non factors throughout three games and yet or four games and yet they scored a whole ton of runs. I would think that's probably a really good sign for the season. Right. Yeah, it's one of those you go into the locker room, you're one for 15 from three and you're down four. You're like, oh, we're gonna win by 12. It's good shots. It's all that. Yeah. I I on Thursday, we had the Dodgers. And Andy Pajes went four for 51 in the postseason last year. And he being a pretty young player to say this, he said, look, it's always going to happen in baseball. Like there's going to be a downturn at some point. I'm just disappointed it happened in the playoffs. And so with that level of clarity about a series and also I think Cleveland is a top five pitching strategy and preparation team in all of Major League Baseball. And they have been for for a decade and a half, I feel like Carl Willis is state of the art. So if you go two and two against them and your big guns didn't do anything, I'm taking that and running. And I would also say like you get to play the bad franchises too. What makes Cleveland so great at pitching strategy? I think they let their guys figure out who they are. They let them tinker and play and there's not like a you go into this box immediately. Although they've had success with the Corey Kluber, Shane Bieber, Aaron Savali sort of like let's tunnel fastball slider. That has been very effective for them. But I think they go and find disparate arms. They find arms that they feel like have upside and they turn them into something for the most part. So I think I think it's that they let people be unique and they let people pitchers tell them what they want to be and what they think they are. I think that's a big part of it. And you know, they they don't get enough credit for making that run with all the ridiculous Louis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clausset stuff. They lost their closer and a starting pitcher and they made up 15 and a half games in the division. That's insane. So as one who's going to watch a lot of Peacock this this baseball season to watch my buddy Jason Benetti on Sunday nights, is is it going to be as much air traffic controller? I don't know if you know this, Michael, but Jason's father was an esteemed air traffic control guy at Chicago O'Hare for decades. Are you going to have to have that? Will there be that many moving parts also every Sunday night? Well, out of you know, honestly, I'm in a bullpen when you have multiple voices because man, you were you were busy last night. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it because you get a different dimension and it never gets stale. And, you know, like I think one of the cool facets of this show is that you put different parts in different places with different people and you get a different result. I'm different in that booth than I am in the Tiger show. I think Hyphen is different in that booth than he is at the Mariner show, which is a very good show. Aaron does an amazing job. You just get different conversations when folks are around different ex players and all that. So I love it. And I think it's going to be novel every week. But, you know, it's really fun in the air traffic control department. Like you said, I think I think the piece of it that is the most interesting to me is, you know, we have to get off of the conversation really fast and into the play by play. And and there there's just a rhythm to analysts that they know, you know, these people do it a lot. So they know the cadence and they know the rhythm and the timber of it. And it just I think it works. What else are you going to be doing with NBC? So, you know, Saturday Night Live is it's been a great show now. I. So so football basketball of some sort. I don't know what yet and I'm not like, you know, Brock knows. I don't know what it's going to be as yet. But some football NBA college basketball and then and then MLB on Sunday. Awesome. I know it's really so cool. It is. I sent you didn't I send you the peace talk on that NBC did that today's show did on Bennettie was just awesome three and a half minutes. Could have been a lot more. Look forward to the documentary coming out at some point on my on my buddy. Do do do the work, Bennettie. I know it's really early, so it's really hard for you to answer this maybe three months from now. Well, some good stuff with Jason Bennettie yesterday as he came on and love the conversation, the opportunity to talk with him about what he saw during his time here in Seattle on Sunday. And I think we're going to get a lot more of him over the course of this year's. The Mariners get more and more of these national broadcasts. Eventually, one of them will feature the youngest Mariner Colt Emerson. And when it does, we can talk about the brand new contract that he just signed. According to Robert Murray, breaking news, Colt Emerson and the Seattle Mariners are in agreement on an eight year, 95 million dollar contract extension. According to sources, the deal includes a ninth year club option, a full no trade clause and escalators that can bring it north of 130 million Emerson represented by Aces. The details on the eight year, 95 million dollar extension, which is a record for a player who has not yet debuted in the major. So there you go. Huge news this morning, 95 million dollars over eight years for Colt Emerson, but the team's got an option for ninth. So let's think about what this means, at least in current MLB CBA world, because we don't know what this is going to look like after this off season. But assuming players have their teams have the control of a player for six years, right? Essentially three years pre arbitration where you make the league minimum, and then three years of arbitration where you make progressively more each year, assuming you continue to get better and better. This would mean that during those six years, he's getting paid and then he gets another two years after that, where instead of being a free agent, he's still the Mariners. He's still committed here. And really it's three because they have the opportunity to add a club option. So the Mariners are going to give him close to 100 million dollars now over the course of this contract, guaranteed. But it means that he doesn't get till free agency until he's three years older than he normally would be. And the Mariners have him during that time. It's a good deal, right? Instead of instead of six years to free agency, it's going to be up to nine years. So he's going to be 29 years old, right? Should be after 2034, if I'm doing the math right? Yeah, so he should be 29 heading into age 30 when he becomes a free agent. And good for him. By the way, at 30 years old, 29, 30, you can still make some really good money in free agency after having already pocketed 95 million dollars and guaranteed it for yourself. By the way, he could get up to 130 million during that time. If he's the kind of player they think he's going to be. And I'm sure this allows them to move some of the money around into seasons where they would want to spend more versus less. Is there risk? Yeah. Of course there is. You don't have to look far to remember the name Evan White. Of course there's risk. They signed Evan White after he'd been in the league a very short amount of time and it didn't work at all. Is there risk? Yeah, because we remember Jared Kelnick, a guy that they wanted to sign to a deal similar to this when he was in the minor leagues. He came up, he turned down that deal, biggest mistake of his life and the greatest thing that ever happened to the Mariners because unfortunately for Jared, he's a bust. So they must really feel confident in Colt Emerson, the person in addition to Colt Emerson, the player, I don't blame them. Colt Emerson, the person very different from Jared Kelnick. And I think that's a big reason why they feel a whole lot better about this deal and doing it even after some of those mistakes and potential mistakes of the past. I think Colt Emerson, the player, is a whole lot more likely to succeed than Evan White. Better bat, more premium position. Not just, I mean, look, Evan White can play D, but he did it at first base. This kid can run. I mean, just all of the things that Colt Emerson can do, he's stayed healthy. That hasn't been a concern. So yeah, I understand 100% why they would go down this road with Colt Emerson. Is there risk? Of course there is. But the potential reward, if he is the dude that you think he's going to be, top 10 kind of prospect, is that you got him at a fairly reasonable rate, $100 million over the course of eight years. And maybe that goes up to a ninth year, but OK, fine. That's time that you don't have to negotiate with him, that he can't become a free agent. So I think this is awesome. Yeah, I hope he's not Dustin Ackley. I hope he's not Jared Kellnick. I hope he's not Evan White. Those are cautionary tales. I hope he's Julio Rodriguez, who also signed the deal. Now, it was once he was into his first season. It was once he'd been in scene major league pitching. Yeah, there's definitely a question mark here. But it shows you just how strongly they feel about him. And I'm going to keep coming back to it shows you the Mariners really truly have a have a system that they are following. Right. It is draft. He was drafted, developed. He's now been developed trade. Well, he's not a part of that part. And retain for the guys that they really think are part of their core, part of their nucleus. They want to retain them. They want to keep them here long term and they're willing to spend a tremendous amount of money to make it happen and they're willing to take a risk. But they're a lot more willing to take an 100 million dollar risk on nine years of Colt Emerson, a guy they've gotten to know as supposed to spending that kind of money on a free agent that comes from the outside. This probably means that JP Crawford is not around next year. Not that that was a huge surprise. He's entering the final year of his deal. Maybe there's a situation in which he does return, but it feels hard to imagine. Yeah, three six. Oh, I agree. Guaranteed opening day shortstop next year. No doubt I would say he probably is for sure. Good. Like they really truly believe in him. And by the way, if JP comes back and signs a short term deal, could he find himself a second or third or say, yeah, of course, there's always ways to do this. I just like that this kind of runs in line with some other young stars that have gotten extended. So if you're a Mariners fan, you should be fired up about this. Because what the Mariners are saying with this extension is they truly believe Colt Emerson is going to be in the Jackson Churio Roman Anthony type bucket. Because those are two 21 22 year old players that got extended super early or cornerstones of their teams and our stars. It also means there's no reason to play games. I know I know I know the Mariners get grief at times for being cheap and for being, you know, an ownership group that doesn't want to pay anything. Yada, yada. The ownership groups that actually are like that play games with these guys, right, Pittsburgh and Oakland, not Oakland anymore, Tampa. But like those teams play games, they wait until their super two status is up and then they try to make sure they get an extra year by kind of screwing the player over. They're not doing that. If anything, this gives them all of the opportunity now to wait as long as they need to, to bring him up when it's the absolute right time, when it's the absolute right time in his development, not when it's the right time to start the clock, because the clock is now already started on him, whether he's playing in the big leagues or not. Great. I love this. I really do. And this is how you commit to players. This is how you commit to players and show them that if they go through that draft, develop and trade scenario, there is the retention element where you can get paid and get paid a lot of money here. So put him on the list with Julio, put him on the list with Luis Castillo, put him on the list with Josh Naylor, put him on the list with Cal Raleigh, curious to see what happens with the group of pitchers. Yes. I think it's important to note that most of those players other than the rock are all hitters and it is a lot safer to extend hitters than it is to extend pitchers. But now there's a great conversation to be had about what this looks like for a kid moving forward, who they clearly believe in. Clearly. Remember, the Mariners don't have a lot of money invested in players after what is it, 2027 or eight. They really don't. It's Julio, it's Naylor, it's Cal. Like it's a couple of guys like that after that. There's really nobody. Now you're going to add Cole Demerson to that list. You've got guys who will still be under team control and they'll get raises due to arbitration, but they don't really have a lot of long term commitments, which gives them opportunities to retain with the guys that they want to retain. And this is one of them. Also, I know you've obviously presented the risk that could be associated with a deal like this. The other side of it is for how just expensive premier short stops are in the game of baseball at their late 20s. If you all of a sudden get ages 27, 28 and 29, Colt Demerson for $12 million a year and he's a six war player, it's a bargain. Because a player right now of that ilk is making 40 million a year. Yeah. I mean, Boba Schett's contract is absurd and he wasn't even close to that. 40 million a year and God knows what they'd be making in six years. Eight years. Yeah. I mean, you could be getting a guy at that point who should be making 50 million a year plus in the 12 to 15 million. I'm sure that money goes up as he goes up, but even if it's at 25 million at that point, unbelievable deal for the Mariners. And yeah, there's risk associated for both of them. And they both agreed that this was the way to get it done. By the way, it also speaks to how comfortable he must be here that he's willing to commit here for the next nine years of his career. Or we'll be right back. Brock Zane, it's Brock and Salk Colt. James Emerson signs an eight year, $95 million extension, hasn't even played a game in the bigs. It's next on Brock and Salk.