Hour 4-Stacy Rost, Need to Know, and Callers

Get in the freaking auto! From the Quantum Fiber Studio, this is Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports. Brock Eward is my hero. James Ewer just punched me in the kidney. I was gonna use you to a man. That way, Sherm, this is a show that has my name on it. It's got a tongue though. Now, here are your hosts, Brock Ewerd and Mike Salk. Hello! All right, final hour of our week here in the Brock and Salk show. No Brock today. He'll be back on Monday though, I promise. We'll take your phone calls at 9.30 as we always do. We'll play some Felicuti and then we'll see what sort of phone calls you guys have. And my guess is everyone's gonna be pretty excited about the Mariners and where they're at. And that doesn't usually be. And why wouldn't you be, Stacey? Thank you. Why wouldn't you be? That is the voice of Stacey Ross, who follows us. When you have a chance to make your record the date. Yeah. You gotta take it. The date? Wow. So if they, no, wait. They're four and nine yesterday. Four and nine yesterday. Okay, so yesterday their record was the date. Yeah. They can't do it again tomorrow. And that's a good thing. Right, you don't want to lose. Yeah. Right, then you'd be four and ten, but on four. It's just gross. Oh, no. Yeah, so anyway. Well, hi Stacey. How are you? Good. What is going on? So I've been trying to figure out the whole Mariner thing. Yeah. The what makes a lot of sense. I think we all know the what. Right? We all know the what. We know they're not hitting. We know that they're not doing the little things. We know they're not executing. The what, like, there's good numbers to back it up. You can look at fastballs that they're missing. You can look at whiffs inside the strike zone, which Luke Arkins had yesterday, which surprised me. Like there's so many things that explain the what. Do you have any idea what the why is? No, I was. So I spent the annoying thing about saying an opinion on Aaron attaching yourself to it is when you realize over time that's not the only reason. And then you're like, now I got to distance myself. But I think for a while, I thought, oh, well, three notable hitters barring Randy Rosarano, who's had a good start, three notable hitters were all in WBC. And the worst of those three cowl was in a WBC where he's also splitting time. This guy's going days without getting like actual time in a real game facing pitching. And who knows how much time he's actually getting to like, they're not giving him four hours a day to get in a cage and then talk with a specialized coach and then tweak little, you know, things. So I just thought, oh, it's the WBC. Surely it will write itself and you've seen some improvements like his at bat against Grom nominal. And I thought, okay, this is really encouraging. He drew a walk in another game against the Rangers and maybe that same one. I would know. But and I thought, okay, I feel like there's some improvement here. I guess a grounding out of popping up is better than a strike out, I guess, right? Like I'm reaching. But I think that while the WBC is absolutely a factor, they just don't look right. And I can't explain why that is. And my guess is it's not the same reason for every single dude. Well, that's a good point. Like there is no reason to attach just one thing behind all of this. It can be a, you know, a bunch of little things all adding up. I have been reluctant to use the WBC thing because it feels kind of excusey to me to say WBC. But as we sit here now two weeks in, I'm running out of reasons not to use it as part of not the whole thing, but part of what's going on. I keep coming back to the weight of expectations because I just Brock and I have had too many conversations about expectation level and they challenges across sports, not just for the Mariners, but across sports. How hard it is to play with a lead to play with a division lead to deal with the expectation that you're supposed to be very good. And they spent a lot of time using the words World Series down at spring training. And now here we are. And those words have disappeared for a little while because it's like, wait a minute, just get yourself back on track. I was pushing back ironically against a former athlete in that debate. Bump and I were talking about it a couple days ago. He was saying like, look, this is probably a factor for some guys, the weight of expectations to start the season. I was like, Bump, come on. Like are they really at the time when they were in the Angel series? I was like, okay, are they really under more pressure in this series against the Angels in April or in game seven of the ALCS? Right? Like this most of this same group. It's a different kind of pressure. Exactly. He was like, well, that pressure is, you know, you're in the moment. You've also been playing a season. You've been in high pressure moments. I know it's the most pressure you've ever been under because it's the furthest you've ever been as an organization, but it's different. And he was like, expectations are a little bit different. I was like, dang it, it's a good take. What am I going to do? Expectations are different from pressure. They absolutely are because you feel like you're supposed to be doing something. Yeah. Last year there was an element of playing with house money, especially after the season had not gone all that well for half of it. And then finally they kind of got it all going and they got on a roll. This was from Ryan Rowland Smith yesterday. Was this with, who was this? Was this with Wyman and Bob? This was Ryan Rowland Smith talking about. Was this with us? Was this with you? How dare you? I don't know who it was. Yeah, I heard it on my way home from work. So it was with you guys. Well, he's on with both of us. Some showers have gone after it. I don't know who it was. I'm not going to lie. There's times when I'm like, hey man, there feels like there's no energy with this team. However, when you get robbed of three home runs like the other night, so you're deflated in that dugout, man. When you have a situation, Emerson Hancock had to go back out in that seventh inning. I'm sitting there, man, I'm feeling for him right now because this back in the Angels series, two runners on with none out, can't get a blue gray, we can't get a bump down and you got the middle of your oil coming up and you can't get a run across. I'm telling you that is so, I don't care what game of the year it is, that is so deflating and it can just suck the life straight out of that dugout. So sometimes you do have to manufacture some of that energy because it is low. I'm not going to lie. It feels like I'm not in there too, by the way. So I can't speak for that. But from my point of view, I'm watching God, man, someone needs to get some, some sort of energy cranking with this team because it does look pretty flat. All right. So it's sort of a two-part thing. That must have been a great interview by the way. It was fan. I love having Ryan on. You must have asked some really good questions to get that out of him. Wow. Nice job, Stacy. You're a pro. That's why the bump in Stacy shows as great as it is. Oh, wow. Way to make that up. Hey, anytime. The Roland Smith point there though is a good one. They do look flat. Everyone looks flat when they're not hitting. So that has to be stated. But how much of that is like needing to artificially? Yeah, or like trying to, trying to get back to the beginning because where they ended last year, you don't just get to start on third base next year. So I remember you and I might have had a conversation about this during one Friday. But one of the things that I said, I was really excited for to start the season and it might be a big factor was having Josh and Ailer for a full season. And one thing that I felt that, a reason that I felt that is he has an intensity and a competitiveness that I really, really like. And you could see that at the end of the season last year, obviously the only three months he was here when he'd be talking to other guys about what he was seeing from a certain picture or whatever. And I think Ryan approached this in a nuanced way, which was the right approach was just to say, look, that's not always going to happen. It's not going to happen in April, right? Josh was here for the final three months of the season. And it's really tough to have that happen when you've got a guy who just robbed your third home run in a game that you should be winning by two. So yeah, it's hard to, you're not going to get a raw, raw guy and baseball anyways, you know this. I think people call for like the any given Sunday halftime type approach and dance not going to tell these guys like, who's got to find a guy to go to an inch? It's just you're not going to have that speech. Great speech. But could you have guys that have a little more intensity and just a little more energy and it doesn't have to be fake, but it could be staying locked in even if you kind of feel in the back of your mind that you're going to lose. It's a funny one because on one hand you want some positive, fun, loose energy. Victor Robles has a lot of that. He's hurt right now. But on one hand you want positive, fun, loose energy. On the other hand, you want, hey, stop making dumb like lack of concentration stakes. Stop joking. It's not funny right now. That is the challenge of trying to ride that middle ground and that seems to be where the Mariners are at. That being said, win three out of four this weekend and everyone's going to forget about all this and you kind of just be right back on the track that you're supposed to be. So Stacy, thank you. Who you're talking to? Ryan Rollinsmith again today. What's on the show? No, we're going pretty heavy Mariners leaning into the start of this series for the same reasons. Just talking about like why the series, why a series on April 10th that starts on April 10th really does matter in terms of energy and vibes. Some of the things we're watching for. So lots of Mariners. What do we make of the Humpy plushie here in front of us? Have you seen it yet? I did get now. This is the shoulder plushie. I know that we've kind of buried this and it's long dead, but I stand by they shouldn't have had Humpy win again. Agreed. I think they should have retired Humpy or just kind of like it should have been a one-time special thing. God, look how great he looks here in the little like stuffy deal. How cute I see. I know he's pretty adorable and he's got like you can actually clip it to your shoulder with a magnet. But it says Matt Nelson already has dibs. Yeah, Matt's already claimed that one. So if you're hoping to bring that home for your dog, Luke, he's not going to get an opportunity to destroy that particular stuffed animal. It's cute though. Thank you, Stacy. Thank you. Your show starts here in about 50 minutes. So make sure everybody tunes in. I'll be right back with everything you need to know next. Need to know 15 minutes past every hour with Brock and Salk presented by Marquis data. Here's what you need to know. First baseball returns to T-Mobile Park tonight and the Mariners need to get themselves in gear. I agree with Stacy. I think it is an important series if they lose it. No, the season doesn't end, but it is time for this team to play the kind of baseball that we've all expected them to play since the season began. And they've yet to really do that. It has been sloppy. It has not been clean. Obviously they haven't hit. We've heard conversations about the pitching as well. This was Jesse Rogers yesterday. Good news and bad news. Okay, you can't get these games back that that the Mariners are losing a lot of them low scoring, but you can't tell me that Josh Hitler is going to have a 277 OPS right or Julia Rodriguez 390 trimming or Cal 481. These are ridiculously low. So it's bound to turn around. I don't think the division is it has a team that can run away with it. So everyone's going to be bunched up for a while. The angels are going to do their thing and then fade as they always do. So plenty of time and understanding that this thing will turn around. I guess it'd be much worse if they all had 1000 OPS is and and and the team was four and nine right so that you can only go up and usually in baseball water finds that love its level. So I think it's just as good as last year. Even if Cal doesn't it 60. It'll look a little different if he, you know, comes down to 30 or 35 like you still got to make up for that production somewhere. But you know the addition of Donovan alone could do that young as well. So yeah, I think it's fine and it will be fine. It just looks a little wonky right now. I agree with most of that. And by the way, if water is going to find its level, that means that while it's obviously been well below for a while there'll be some time and hopefully it's weeks and months where it's well above its level and that that is probably coming at some point. The Mariners shouldn't be a team destined to go, you know, four and nine over and over again throughout the year. But you also got to start doing it. You got to start showing it. You got to start playing the kind of baseball that we all believe they can. They'll do it behind Emerson Hancock tonight. Then you got Luis Castillo tomorrow. Logan Gilbert Sunday. George Kirby gets the ball in the finale on Monday. Here's the second thing you need to know talking about the Kraken and kind of some of the decision making they've made this week. Todd Laiwiki deciding to make a change as Ron Francis is out yesterday. He explained that Jason Bonnarall will be the guy in charge moving forward. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think he hears this and he and Ron had a great relationship and you know, he obviously wonders, but we've calmed him down. We have a hell of a lot of work to do here. We want this to be a prolific offseason. I think with change you can do things differently that you perhaps otherwise wouldn't have done differently. And I think there's things that we can do differently to improve our hand here and we'll do it with him. But we've also got incredibly smart people in and around this organization. Samantha is an incredible owner and she's fundamental to how we're going to get this fix. Jerry Breckheimer has been with us since day one and you know, his voice we've heard, but we're going to hear that a little more because we want to get his opinions. Yeah, maybe removing one big personality allows some of the others to have a little bit more oxygen, but I like the idea of a prolific offseason. Good. They need it. They need a prolific offseason. They need to make changes to the organization to bring in star players that people can connect with and that can win. There's no doubt about that. And obviously the ticking time bomb of having the Sonic's back is a big deal for the Kraken yesterday. They came back to win kudos to them. They were down three to one. They got kind of a nice lucky goal off of bad bounce. Then McMahon puts went in to tie things up at three. They survived a crazy back and forth overtime and it was Berkeley Cat getting it done in the shootout. Berkeley Cat in the first shootout opportunity of his young national hockey league career. Here comes the kid. What a goal! A little cat hits it done and the Kraken are up by one. Yeah, just the second shootout win of the year for the Kraken, but kudos to them. He got one of them. Maddie Baneers had the other. Unfortunately, you're probably at a time where you don't want to win because you want to increase the best chance you've got to win the lottery in the draft and maybe end up with a great young player like Gavin McKenna. So hopefully some luck will be on their side. Here's the third day you need to know. Yeah, following the Masters leaderboard, not a tremendous amount of change so far this morning. Rory McElroy and Sam Burns both continue to lead at five under. Neither have teed off yet today. Wyndham Clarks made a bit of a move. He's four under and then after that it's pretty much business as usual. A lot of pars out there. I've been following Jordan Spieth's morning. He's one under through eight, but yeah, it's just been a lot of pars and not a lot of great action yet this morning. We'll see how things go over the course of the day. Demarcus Lawrence was there though. Apparently said it was more fun hanging out of the Masters than being at the Super Bowl because he didn't have to work. Hey, don't get used to not working. Pal, we need you. That makes me worried that he's enjoying what could be retired like he also said that he grew up like 30 miles from Augusta and had the chance to work the tournament. The Masters during high school and that's cool. And then in his NFL days had times where he might have been able to go and it never worked out. So I think that was his first. That's pretty cool. He seems like a really good dude, at least from the outside. That is everything you need to know. Quarter past every hour here on the Brock and Salk show. Oh, I should point this out more. You sent this over. I thought it was just sort of a cool piece of information. Patrick Doherty from NBC Sports does an annual NFL head coach rankings piece. He had Mike McDonald fourth, fourth Sean McVeigh, Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, Mike McDonald. Still hasn't surpassed those two and Doherty's mine. I mean, McVeigh and Shanahan. I'll give you McVeigh for now. Yeah, they definitely. There's some history there. It feels like things could have gone either way very easily last year. I think he's done pretty well against Shanahan. I'll give you Andy Reid for now. Shanahan? I'm not buying that one. Sorry. I think Kyle Shanahan is a really smart guy. And if you're doing coordinators and all that, he's right at the top. But overall as a head coach, no, I'm not there. I think even with McVeigh, McVeigh made some mistakes in that last game. I know. But I mean, you know, people make mistakes. I will put Mike McDonald third with the possibility that by the end of this coming year, he ends up as number one. That's what I would say that he is trending forward while those other guys are either even or trending down at the stage of his career. And that by the end of next year, I would absolutely hope that Mike is number one on this list. All right, we got a half hour left in today's show. Let's open up the phone lines 866-979-3776. What's on your mind, people? How do we feel about the Mariners start? Anybody got a why? I think we know a lot of the what's, but does anybody have a why as to what is going on with these Mariners? 866-979-3776. When is it going to turn around? What's going to make it turn around? What are you upset about? What is making you feel happy? 866-979-3776. Inside of two weeks from the draft, what do you want the Seahawks to do? Obviously, we've talked about defensive ends. We've talked about corners. We've talked about running backs. We've talked about trading back. 866-979-3776. Thoughts on the Masters. Thoughts on the Kraken making their big move this week. We talked a lot about Ron Francis and how that was the right thing to do, but what happens next? What are they going to do this off season? How are they going to turn this thing and have a prolific off season as we heard there from Todd Laiwiki? So those are sort of the big basics, but anywhere you guys want to go, 866-979-3776 is the phone number 866-979-3776. We'll take your calls next. From the Quantum Fiber Studio, you're listening to Rock and Sol on Seattle Sports and 973 FM HD 2. A beautiful sunny day and some Felicuti to finish up an hour Friday morning. It was nice to hear from the Textors earlier today saying that they've kind of gotten into Felicuti, thanks to our fellow Fridays. We usually play just a little glimpse, just a little piece of Felicuti to put everybody in the right mood at 9.30 on Friday mornings. And I will admit it does that for me. It makes me start thinking about the weekend, which is going to start for me in exactly 23 minutes. Can't wait for that. Okay, you guys are going to help me with those last 23 minutes, as we always do, as we open up the phones. 866-979-3776. Mariner's not in a good space. Kraken not in a good space. Seahawks have won the Super Bowl and are getting ready for the draft. That's sort of the three big stories in town today. So what do you guys got? 866-979-3776. James and Tacoma gets us started. Good morning, James. Hi, last year in August, the Mariner's had a players only meeting. They never see to win 17 or the next 18 games. If the Mariner's struggled this weekend against Houston, do you think it's too early to have a players only meeting? No, not really. If they struggle, but I would use the caveat that you just said, if they struggle against Houston, I don't think I would do it yet. I don't think I would do it yet. But if you lose three out of four, get swept by, yeah, at that point, you got to do something. You got to do something to stop the bleeding. Yes. And I guess the answer to your question, and I love the question, and I'm assuming that because you asked it, you think the answer is yes as well, James. I think part of the answer to that question is what's going on in the clubhouse. What are some of the underlying issues that we would really have no idea about, but the players do. What is the fallout, if any, from the Randy stuff at the end of the Cal stuff, at the end of the WBC, who's working hard, who's not, who's playing hard, who's not? All of the things that they would know that we wouldn't, I think all of that needs to kind of be understood before I would fully say yes to something like that. But they would know. I mean, that's up to them, right? Okay, thanks. All right. There you go. I thought James might have more to say. There you go. That does open up a line. So if you want to talk about whatever's on your mind, 866-979-3776, yeah, I, players only meet, you're going to have to do something at some point. I mean, you can't, you can't let this go forever, but I, I don't know. I, I'm not quite at a point yet where I think that that would be an element of panicking, and I don't think they should be panicking. I think they've got to pay attention to the details, and I think they got to go out and have fun. And I understand that those two things can feel a little bit at cross purposes, but they're going to have to figure that out. Like that's, that's baseball is finding that balance. And that's, you know, this is what Dan gets paid for. This is Dan's strength. Right. We've talked about this. Dan's strength is probably not going to be the in-game decision-making. His strength is dealing with the clubhouse, dealing with this, getting the guys to play hard, play well. This is what Dan does. So this is a moment where you need him to kind of do his thing. 866-979-3776. Let me go to Sean who's in Puyallup. Good morning, Sean. Morning, guys. You know, this was the first time in a long time that I didn't go a whole year with the Seahawks and the Mariners both frustrating me, you know, because Seahawks won the Super Bowl this year. So I was able to get a little bit of a break from having a headache. But we're right back into it with the Mariners already giving me a headache. And this goes back to last year. This is something that has been bugging me for so long. Can we please stop with the platoons? Can we stop with the substitutions mid-game? That's the one game that really frustrated me was when Dan had a Victor Robles substitute for someone. He didn't get his gear on in the right. That kind of strike. And then they went to JP. JP comes up with one strike already. So those are two different problems though. You're saying two different things. One is stop with the platoons. The other is about how that those how those platoons are substituted for each other. Do you think both of them? So the platoons thing I'm just going to tell you you're wrong. I don't know what to tell you. You're just wrong on that. You're just wrong. Rob Refsnider is a great hitter against lefties. He hasn't shown it yet this year and he's not a good hitter against righties. I mean, you should have looked at the numbers. Say and the opposite is true for Luke Rayleigh and the same like those guys are not good in their career and there's enough evidence to show it against the same handed pitcher, but they're very good against opposite handed pitchers. To Luke Rayleigh be an everyday guy. I feel like you should be looking to set your lineup up for everyday guy, but no team has has nine everyday guys. Well, you know, I understand that you're just you're railing against modern day baseball, which in which most teams have said it's really hard to find nine everyday guys. So we're going to have seven of them and then two guys who can play, you know, in if we use them together, they may actually be better than an everyday guy and we can get the matchups we want. Now that's that's the first part and I'm going to I will argue with you forever. Platoons are a good thing in baseball. How you how you substitute more. Oof. You're yeah. I'm more thinking also like I would almost just go with the guy who's hot, you know, I don't know. I feel like we sometimes take out guys who are hot out of the lineup for that platoon situation. We absolutely do and for good and for good reason. I guess I guess we could agree to disagree on that. I guess I just don't think there's a lot of evidence on this. Like when you look especially with lefties like lefty, there's so many lefties out there that just can't hit lefties. Yeah, and I can understand that and I remember last year like was it Dom Kanzon or Cole Young? I forget which I maybe was both when they definitely struggled with lefties, but then like coming into this year, you're seeing Cole Young. I've seen him. He's hitting lefties. And Cole Young is a young player who is proven right now. We're finding out whether Cole Young I'm not tell him not putting Cole Young in that category. He's a young player and we're finding out Luke Rayleigh against right handers in his career has a 788 OPS, which is a very good player. Luke Rayleigh in his career against lefties has a 525 OPS. That's almost not major league. I mean, it's not major league quality. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm agree. I agree with like the fact, obviously. So even if he's hot, Luke Rayleigh is a triple A player against lefties, but he's a good player against righties. Like that's why platoons exist. Even the guy who's so even if he's like hot like last game, he hit, you know, hits against lefties. You're still you think you're still taking about that 100% of the time. Yes. Okay. I think what we find is that those guys are hot because of the situation they're being put in. And when you start to expand that situation, then they're not hot anymore because they're doing something. They're not actually good at doing. So look, determining which guys are platoon worthy and which guys can be everyday players. That's one thing. But just saying, I hate platoons. I can't get behind that. I like platoons. And honestly, if people are blaming Dan for the platoons, I think the person least comfortable with them on the on the team is Dan. I think that's much more of a Justin and Jerry thing and that they like the platoons because that's how you maximize some of the playing value. I think Dan is probably the one who's the least comfortable with it. Now, the second thing from and I was great. The way that those people are being substituted for each other in the middle innings, I'm with you 100%. I don't like it either. I think you got to wait and that occasionally, Lyle, you said this the other day, one at bat from Robles or ref Snyder against a righty is preferable to burning that opportunity later. You got to play the long game on that stuff. Yeah, there's no doubt. And then again, the other day it led to ref Snyder having to go out and right field in a one run game because the whole bench was burned. It's not ideal. No, it's definitely not. It's not ideal. That stuff has to be cleaned up. But as for using platoons, I mean, this has been part of modern baseball for like 20 years. So I think my take on it is I don't want to see too many of them. I think one to maybe two is fine. I don't want to see a whole roster of platoons. Great. But you have two. Yeah, that's about right. Sure. That's about the right number of platoons. And if it was one, I'd be fine with that too. But I'm certainly based on the way this roster is constructed. I don't want Luke Rayleigh hitting against lefties. I don't want Dom Kan's own hitting off and against lefties. I actually don't mind ref Snyder and and Robles hitting more against right handers a little bit more natural, but you just have the opportunity to play it that way. And in theory, look, it hasn't worked right now. So if you want to point at the last two weeks and say the platoons are the problem, I guess you can. But I don't, I think that's taken a very minimalist view, taking a very small sample and trying to make a point that I don't think is real. All right. 866-979-3776. Let me do Chase and Auburn. Good morning, Chase. Good morning. Firstly, I want to say I'm super excited to hear the new clip in the open of you and Charm getting into it on Sunday. I think that's not going to happen. No, it's going to be great radio. No, it's not. That's not going to happen. You're bootstrapped and get ready for it. Anyways, I'm calling. Normally I talk about the manners of the Seahawks, but manners aren't hitting right now. Yon, Snore, Seena before we're going to be fine. It's early. I'm calling for the Kraken. So this has been on my mind since the Kraken selected their players as part of like their creation draft or expansion draft. We had, if you remember, we had the opportunity to get a more established, better goalie than Grubauer, but who was a bit on the older side and we chose to go Grubauer. I've always felt this about doltending sports hockey, soccer, and the way you go across your goaltender is your ceiling. If you have great offense, but poor goaltending, you are probably still going to end up with a good regular season record, but a good playoff team is going to expose you. And not only that, but if we had gotten the older, more established player, wouldn't he have been a better guide for the court as he was heading towards retirement? And I just think that I don't know. I mean, I would have the one thing I would say, let me just jump in here. The one thing I would say here is it by all accounts, Grubauer is like the world's greatest guy. I'm not around that locker room. I don't I don't really know who's who, but by all accounts, Grubauer is beloved in there regardless of how he's played. And I don't hate Gru. I don't think he's terrible. I just wanted more of a, I mean, he was already a, hadn't he wasn't he coming off a cup win? I don't know how to be well enough to tell you. He won the cup in, I mean, he had won the cup in Colorado. I don't know. There's a lot you can criticize. And obviously Grubauer has been disappointing compared to what they signed them for. I don't think that is necessarily where I would point fingers. I'm not saying you're wrong. I just don't necessarily think that was the problem at the end of the day. Like, you know, the expansion draft did not go as well for them as it did for Vegas, as we know, because the teams kind of cleaned it up. Secondly, you know, when they got really high picks in the draft with Baneers and with Wright, those guys have not lived up to being the number two and four pick in the draft. They've been good, not great. And they haven't developed people well. And then you look at kind of what they've done in free agency. I think that's where the biggest misses have occurred. Chandler Stevenson and Andre Burakowski and what's his name? Bjorkstra... Like you go through a lot of the decisions they made in free agency. I think that's where some of the problems have occurred rather than trying to find, rather than trying to find guys that are going to be stars. They went and spent a lot of money on, in my mind, guys who were in the middle. Hasn't worked out very well. Yeah, it's an interesting point. I don't, I don't know that I have felt that necessarily about the goal tending, but I'm not, I don't know. I guess maybe I could do more research on. I don't feel like that's been the issue. Heck, if you want to do well in the playoffs, yeah, you got to have the goal tending. But as you said, the offense sure helps in the regular season. They've only made the playoffs once. So how about some more offense? At least get to the playoffs. Then we'll figure out the goal tending. Then we go, then we'll figure out the goal tending. Let me try, uh, Greg in Houston. Good morning, Greg. Hey guys. Um, so I guess this is kind of piggybacking on the first caller. Um, it seems to be a leadership issue in my opinion. We had Julio and the WBC say that the WBC means more than the world series. And then we had the whole thing with Randy and Cal. And now I kind of wonder about how JP Crawford's feeling about Colt Emerson getting all that money and coming up, I guess. So do we, I mean, are you on the same page? You think there's a player leadership issue there and Dan's not handling it well? I think that's probably going farther than I would be willing to say, but I think you're asking good questions. If that makes sense. I'm not going to sit here and say they've got a problem. I just don't know that. It's, I think too early to figure to, to, to make a statement like that, Greg, but I don't think there's anything wrong with those questions. Like I could there be a problem? Sure. I mean, I think you just brought up three potentially explosive issues. I don't know whether any of them by themselves have truly grown into anything major, but the chemistry last year was by all accounts, one of the biggest, most important parts of what made this team special. And as we sit here today, you know, you've got three challenges that you just mentioned to that chemistry. I think you're asking the right questions, right? Yeah. I mean, when would we say that Cal, who we owe in JP year, the top three leaders on the play as far as players? Uh, I know that they, that all three of them have a form of leadership. Are they the top? I don't know. Again, I'm not in there every day. Sometimes leaders are guys that we don't think and we find out later. Like we found out later, Robbie Ray was a really important leader for them. I don't know what role Brennan Donovan is already playing or Josh. I mean, I just don't know enough to answer your question. But again, I think you're asking a lot of very good questions and it's probably a little too early for them. Again, you're only two weeks into the season. If we're still having this conversation in another two weeks. Yeah. I think those are all very real concerns and things to look at. If things turn around quickly, which they very well can, then we'll probably forget about all of that because it'll all be water under the bridge. 866 979 3776. Let me try Cullen in T town. What's up, Cullen? Good morning. Morning. How are you doing, man? So I have some questions about potential NBA expansion. So I know that this crack and ownership group makes the most sense and it's probably going to be the ones that do it, right? And I'm grateful for everything they've done. You know, with the remodel, the things they do with the community, they brought the NHL to Seattle. If you're the group to ultimately bring the NBA back to Seattle, I'll be grateful for that. But what it comes to the product, like it makes me nervous. I feel like when it comes to product on the ice for the crack and they've been pretty over on a lot of the big decisions and I don't want to, I don't think they're in a better spot than they were six years ago. And when it comes to the product of putting a team on the court, it makes me nervous to, are we sure that they're going to be the best group to put a successful franchise in the city? In the city, we've had the poor opposite, right? We've seen what a really awesome ownership group does with the Seahawks. We've seen what really bad ownership does when the Tendo was in town with the Mariners, Johnstand, Johnstand. I'm not going to dive into that deep breeze. Good things, bad things, but it makes me a little nervous and regarding to the product. What do you think about that? It doesn't make me nervous. I'll be honest. I understand that you're not the only person who has expressed that level of concern. I don't share it. I respect it, but I don't share it. At the end of the day, they're an expansion team that's five years in. You know, I don't, I think that we had some unreasonable expectations because of what the, what the Vegas Knights were able to do with kind of a different expansion process. So this is kind of like typical for an expansion team. Rather than looking at the lack of success, I would look at the way they've reacted to it and said, okay, this is unacceptable. We've got to make a change. And yeah, they got it wrong with Ron Francis, but they're now moving on from it and hopefully they'll get it right the next time. Todd LeWikie has enough of a track record of getting it right both in Tampa and with the Seahawks that I guess I just have enough trust there that, you know, he gets a pass on this one. That being said, yeah, you better get it right when you end up bringing a basketball team here, of course. Got to get it right, but it'll be hard. It'll, you'll be an expansion team. You're nobody's going to give you a good player off their roster and just like the NHL, it's going to have to be built through the draft and that can take some time. If you're expecting the Sonics to win in their first or second year, that's probably not going to happen regardless of who owns the team. No, I think this group, I think they're ultimately doing a pretty good job. Doing a pretty good job. Let me go to Josh and T town. Also, good morning, Josh. Good morning. I just have to say, I think Dan Wilson has been a good manager for us, but just because of what the front office like praises him for, they say the steady ship, he's a calm voice in the, in the dugout. I think he's more of a bench coach than he is in actual managers. Why do you think it's also too early to really say that, but what is it? What is it that makes you say that? Well, just the fact that he's so caught like they say that he's so like he's a calming like, like he keeps everybody even keel in the dugout. But then like with the, with the certain choices that were made in the playoffs, like bizardo, when we could have gone to either brash or runeos and those last few outs, just like key decisions where I'm like, I feel like we need somebody with more experience. So that's an interesting point. I agree. I'm going to agree with part of that. Maybe not with all of it. I think it's hard to say somebody to make a better bench coach because I don't want to like go too deep. Like, do you know what a bench coach does? Not 100% right. So that, and I'm not, I'm not like trying to embarrass you by saying, Oh my God, you don't even know what a bench coach does. Most of us don't. I mean, like that's normal, but saying he'd make a good bench coach. Well, you got to know what a bench coach does in order to say that that would be a better job for him. I do think that the skills Dan brings are very much managerial. They are the, the, the ability to run a club. That's not what bench coaches do. Honestly, I don't think Dan would make a better bench coach. I think that they do need some help around him with people who are a little bit more in tune with the decision making element. I think that would help. I've talked to people on other, you know, on other benches and other organizations and formally in this one. And it's not unusual to have, whether it's a bench coach or a catching coordinator or just somebody who's in the dugout who is, who is really on that. That's what they do. They work on the decision making process throughout the game. And obviously the manager gets to make the final call, but they're the ones presenting the manager with info throughout the game and a recommendation. You got to get that process right. And I don't know that the Mariners have that process right right now. It certainly was not right in the postseason last year to my eye. And I don't know what's changed heading into this season. I've not seen a lot of evidence in anything else. But as for whether or not Dan's the right guy to manage, I mean, like he is steering the ship in such a way that the guys are happy. And that's a really important factor. Well, that lasts forever. I don't know, but I think leaning into Dan's strengths and not necessarily just focusing on the weaknesses. I think there's some importance to that. One more last call will be Barton Spokane. Good morning, Bart. My man. Hey, thanks for having me on fellows. First time caller. Sweet. Originally an Oakland A-span out of the Bay Area been supporting the Mariners the last few years here in Spokane and really watched them grow, really build what they have going on right now. Just want to remind people it's a hundred and sixty two game season. Obviously you don't want to get off to a slow start. You got to get the bats going. That's why I do want to throw at least one idea out there, which is to, you know, tinker with the lineup, maybe try switching Naylor with a cow. The idea of being that neither is a more of a contact hitter. He also can a little more fleet of foot and then allow cow just to be a bopper, put them in the four-hole to clean up. Paul say, Hey, yeah, I've heard that Bart. I appreciate the call. I'm going to let you go because we're almost out of time here and I just want to finish up the show, but thank you. I've seen texts on that as well. It is an old school view on how to how to create a lineup where, you know, it's contact one, you know, lead off, gets on base and has speed. Two hitters contact, three is your best hitter, does everything and four is a bopper. It's just not really the way they do it anymore around baseball. Not saying it's the wrong thing, but that's just not really how it's done these days. Baseball is get your best hitters at the top of the lineup so they get more bats pretty simple. And who do you want coming up in a huge spot late in the game? Cal, right? He's your best hitter. You want him coming up as often as possible. So you get him into the two spot so that he comes up more often. Pretty much as simple as that. I understand that I understand the logic though. That was baseball for a hundred years. So maybe there was something to it. I think just at some point, the analytics showed, why do I want to go down with my best hitter potentially in the on deck circle instead of it back? I want to give my best hitter an opportunity to hit. That's why you move Cal up to two. But right now he's certainly not hitting that way. So maybe you got to have a conversation. All right. Good stuff. Good week. We'll be back on Monday. I plan to be anyway. More. Are you going to be back on Monday? I will. Okay. Good. Lyle. As far as I know, we're all agreeing to come back on Monday. We've reached an agreement in principle to be back on Monday. Brock to. By the way, I looked the group hour was not coming off the cup with the abs, the lightning one that year, but he was a Vesna finalist. There we go. All right. Thank you more. Appreciate it. Fact checking important. If we get too many more of these facts wrong, we won't be back on Monday. Maybe somebody will throw us out of here finally bump and Stacey coming up next. We'll see you guys Monday morning at 6 a.m. Have a great weekend and the hay is in the barn. See everybody.