Seattle Sports Weekend (Segment 1)

The host of the Seattle Sports Weekend Show expresses excitement to talk about Seattle sports, including the Mariners, Seahawks, and Krakens. He discusses the signing of Shohei Otani by the Los Angeles Dodgers, expressing disappointment that the Mariners didn't make a serious effort to sign him. He also criticizes the Mariners for questionable trades and the lack of a clear long-term plan. The host shares his personal attachment to player Jared Kelnick, who was traded without any return, and expresses frustration with the team's overall direction. The manager of the Mariners, Scott Service, also expresses concerns about the team's competitiveness and the need to add offense. The host argues that big spending in the MLB is necessary to win championships and highlights the significant payroll difference between the Mariners and other teams. He believes that with proper investment, the Mariners could be on the verge of achieving something special. This is the Seattle Sports Weekend Show, hosted by myself, Lawrence, for the first time today. Spilling into the show, hopefully you're having a good weekend so far, and I have to say, I am so excited to do this show today, talk about everything Seattle Sports, the Mariners, the Seahawks, the Krakens, and we have a lot to talk about, let me just say that. And before you say, who is this guy, who let him in the studio, I promise you, you're going to have some fun. And we're going to kick it off right away with a topic very near and dear to my heart, the Seattle Mariners. And if you are a Seattle Mariners fan, my heart goes out to you right about now, because you have been going through so much the past couple of weeks, trying to figure out what's going to happen with your team, where are we going, and so far it's not looking too promising for next year. And we're going to start off by talking about Shohei Otani. So if you didn't know, last week we heard the Los Angeles Dodgers officially signed Shohei Otani to a 10-year, $700 million contract. This is absolutely huge, one of the biggest contracts we have ever seen in history. And the greatest baseball player of our generation has officially made his choice. We know where he's going to go, he's going to be on the Dodgers, and it's going to be that way for the foreseeable future. And there were a few other teams in talks with Shohei Otani, notably the Toronto Blue Jays. I don't think that was a very realistic scenario to play out. I don't think we ever would have seen him go there. We knew he wanted to be on the West Coast somewhere. That probably meant it had to be somewhere where he could get back to Japan easily, which was very important to him when he was making his choice. And it had to also raise some questions about why Seattle wasn't more of a contender. Now, deep down I know that the Mariners didn't have a realistic chance at landing Otani. I think that's fair to say. But, frankly, I'm a little bit shocked that more wasn't done to at least consider the option. Now, we know it's a huge price to pay. We don't have $700 million just to throw out on some player that may not be the saving grace that we need. But there's also some legitimate frustration about the Mariners during the offseason and where they're ultimately going to go going forward. So the Seattle Mariners have made some very questionable trades the past couple of weeks. Jared Kelnick is gone. Marco Gonzalez, gone. Evan White, gone. These guys are on the Atlanta Braves now, which is not one of my favorite teams by any stretch of the imagination. Jeff Besson from ESPN is calling this a salary dump, and realistically it is. I mean, these guys were dragging down the team a little bit in salary. But looking at their salaries, you know they're not taking a huge chunk out. I mean, you've got players in the MLB making tons and tons of money. These guys really aren't those high-caliber, high-cost players. You have to pay them, obviously, but you're not going to be paying them that much. And the question that remains now is what is the actual long-term plan? I mean, you dump the salary. Good. Okay. What are you going to do about that now? I mean, are you going to go find somebody else? Are you just going to wait around and see what happens? Are the other guys supposed to pick up the slack? Now, because this is my first time filling in for the Seattle Sports Weekend Show, I will go on record right now and say that Jared Kelnick is one of my favorite Seattle Mariners. He always will be. I had so much fun watching him play. Some very, very fun electric moments, I think, when he was out at T-Mobile Park. He really did have a certain energy about him that I really, really liked. He did struggle at times, but it looked like he was starting to find his game as well. And to watch him walk out the door, what basically amounts to be a salary dump, really stings in all the wrong places. So, Kelnick was a number six pick by the New York Mets back in 2018, and he was later flipped to the Mariners in exchange for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz. And we can't forget, Kelnick definitely has his flaws. I mean, there's no arguing that. So, he was out for two months on the injured list last season with a broken foot for kicking a water cooler out of frustration. Now, I know that's probably not the perfect personality you want on your team to amalgamate this team and bring everybody together. But, you know, it just shows he's got this passion in him. He really wants to win. When he doesn't win, it's really, really hard for him. He's trying to get this done. And, you know, it's hard. It's really hard when you've been through all these difficult times of being called up to the Mariners, sent back down to the Miners. You don't really know, you know, if you have a permanent place or not. And he was really hoping to really cement his way in the Seattle Mariners, stay with that team and not be this guy who just moves back and forth all the time. So, some may say that it's his personality that wasn't fitting in with the Mariners in the locker room. But letting a number six pick walk out with nothing in return really does sting. And I'm just going to say it sucks. It absolutely sucks. So, I think it would actually help to hear from the man himself, Scott Service, the manager of the Seattle Mariners, and his thoughts on some of these recent moves and what they mean for the team. Let's get that sound bite of Scott Service on Jared Kelnick. Other places, and certainly with Jared, you know, kind of seeing his evolution as a major league player and, you know, the season he had last year when I thought he really kind of turned the corner. You know, it's unfortunate when you trade guys you become close to and haven't talked to you guys since the Geno trade, but, you know, there's another one. So, again, you know, situations come up. You're trying to give yourself options to get your club better. And, you know, moving on from those players, freeze up some things for Jerry and Justin, and we'll see what happens from there. Let's run that sound bite for some of the future moves for the Mariners as well. Number two on the list. There is. I think, you know, as you go into an offseason, you know, everybody has limitations on the resources they're going to be in and how much money they can spend. We do need to add to our club. I talked about the core that we have, which we really like. We've got a ton of pitching, and we don't want to lose any of that or lose sight of who we are there, but we need to add offense. There's no question about that. So I think what it really amounts to, after hearing that, is that Scott Service is also a bit concerned about the overall direction of what we're seeing right now. You know, it's hard to watch players walk out, especially when you're the manager. You're trying to keep this team together, trying to find ways for them to win. You don't feel like you have the tools necessary to get the job done, and that's what a manager does. They're supposed to be able to have the tools to get the job done in practice, in play, and that's really down to the general manager, the person who's supposed to be making sure these moves are made that can actually keep the team competitive. And there's so much more that we could talk about with this. Scott made some comments about how we have to play the cards that were dealt, and there's really not enough time to get to all of that, unfortunately, but I just find this so sad because Scott sounds pretty dejected in this press conference, and really, how can you not be in this scenario? So I know there's people out there who get really frustrated with Scott Service. As a Seattle Mariners general manager, they think he might not be qualified for the job, but you really can't get frustrated with this guy when he's doing everything he possibly can to keep this team competitive, help them win. If the team doesn't spend on the right guys, you're just not going to win. It's that simple, and there's not much more he can do. And I think from this interview, you're hearing his true thoughts come out that he's really concerned that this team might not be competitive if we don't make some serious moves before the next season starts. We've got time. There are options, but we have to act on the right players, or else we're not going to be able to be competitive. There's going to be people out there who don't like this perspective, but this is just the way that it is. Big spending in the MLB wins championships. This is not a league with a salary cap that keeps the league fair and just. The Rangers are fifth in spending and have a 2024 payroll of almost $192 million. The Mariners, on the other hand, are 19th in spending and have a payroll of $92 million. So there you have a huge $100 million gap just right there of what we need to do in order to actually be more competitive. It just goes to show what could be, what could be if we actually spent on the right people and made this team more competitive. Virtually every team behind the Mariners in spending is what I would call basically a basement team, with the exception of some teams like Milwaukee and Baltimore. We have to admit that Baltimore had an amazing season last year. They did so much with so little. But in the grand scheme of things, every other team behind the Mariners is not doing much. You've got the athletics in there. They are not looking good at all. Other teams, of course, have struggled season after season. The Mariners have really turned it around. They are playing so much better than they have in previous years. Do you really want to ruin that now going forward? We're just on the cusp of doing something unique. And if we just spent more now, we could get there. I truly believe we could get there. And it's so frustrating because we are really not that far off. I mean, a lot of core pieces of a championship caliber team are on the team right now, and we all know it's just not enough. We just have to have a little bit more firepower, a little bit more energy if we want to get to that next step. So now we have a question that we have to address. What do you actually do at this point if you are the Seattle Mariners? Who is out there? What option do you take? And is it going to make a difference? Well, the Tampa Bay Rays are reportedly open to moving left fielder Randy Arrozarena. And if we were to bring him in on the Seattle Mariners, it would go a long way in restoring some confidence that this team has a grand plan in place. Now, I'm not saying that Arrozarena is going to completely turn this team around, make next season a guaranteed win of the World Series. I mean, that is going way too far. But I will go out on a limb and say that this is the absolute minimum that many fans would expect in this case. They expect that the Seattle Mariners management is going to go out and find somebody who can bring something else to the team that we've lost. And I think it's fair to say that doing nothing at this point is borderline unacceptable to a point where nobody would be happy if 2024 rolls around and nothing has been done. And I can't fault the Adams for not wanting to pull the trigger on a $700 million player like Otani. But we need something more. We need something more before spring training starts. And if you think about it, we're only about three or four months away from seeing some of that happen, and we really need to be conscious about how much time and how much runway we've got. Something has to get done, or else we're going to be in a really, really bad spot going into next season. And I think what it really boils down to is that the frustration stems from the fact that, you know, Mariners fans have watched this team in the past. They've seen them do amazing things in the 1990s, for example, 2001, one of the greatest seasons in history with Ichiro Suzuki, and a record that is just absolutely amazing to this day that we were able to win so many games. And the fact that after all that kind of fell apart, it just was so bad for so long, watching all these great players leave. You know, we became this perennial team that really did nothing besides farm these great players, send them off to other teams to actually win championships and go on to great things. But the great things never came to Seattle, and that's what people really want. We want to see some great moments, some great things in Seattle again. So I was born in the late 1990s, and though I missed out on watching that amazing run that we had back in, I believe, 1995 at the Kingdome, I did watch Ichiro play as a kid, and I saw these amazing moments that we had on the Seattle Mariners, that record-winning season of how many wins that we had. We felt like victory was ours that season. You know, it didn't turn out that way. It doesn't always turn out the way that you hope, obviously, but we felt that it was possible. We felt that we were actually close to actually getting somewhere. And the fact that it all kind of fell apart, the wheels just fell off, and we became this perennial team that doesn't really do anything, really stinks. A lot of people out there, young people like myself, don't remember a team that was that good. They never had a chance to see a team that was that good. And, you know, just now we're finally getting back to that spot of being this team that could do that again, and we're just not executing. We're just not there yet where we can execute and be this team that could do that again. And you've got to bring some magic back to T-Mobile Park. It's got to be more than bobblehead nights and fireworks, because we need a team that can actually produce, that keeps people in the seats, and makes you want to go buy Root Sports Plus for your TV, because, as we know, no one's watching the Mariners next season if they're not going to win, and they're not going to be on a cable channel you're going to get. So the fact that we're not doing any of that is extremely, extremely concerning, and as a fan like myself, we've got to do something to change that. So sticking with the topic of baseball, for one more quick moment, I want to talk about the Oakland Athletics, who are not going to be the Oakland Athletics for much longer. They are moving to Las Vegas, so we're going to see what happens when that plays out. But it's been nice for the Seattle Mariners to have this team around, because they've been so bad for a while. They really haven't been much of a competitor. That kind of helps us out, keeps us in a playoff spot when the season is happening. But you have to imagine that after this team does move to Las Vegas, and they're going to want to have a strong and robust fan base, they're going to make some changes. They're going to do some spending. Right now they're not spending very much at all, if anything. So it makes you wonder about what the Seattle Mariners are going to do to actually be competitive against a team like this. Who is a rival? I mean, they're going to be a rival. They're going to be a strong rival probably in a couple of years. So you have to think about this right now. You have to plan ahead. It's not good enough to sit there and say, well, they're a bad team now, they're going to stay that way, because they're not spending very much. And with this new image they're going to have in Las Vegas, they're going to want to attract fans. It's got to be the hot new thing to do in Vegas. And that means you've got to be ready. You have to be ready for what this team is going to do. I would say the Mariners caught a break in the sense that Shohei Otani did not go to an American League team like Toronto. That would have been absolutely detrimental to us staying in the race for a playoff spot next season. But the fact that you've got the Angels out there now who can spend more on some of these great players who might be out there, it creates some competition. They're going to want these great players as well. They're going to want to be competitive. They've got this newfound image this team's got to create. Now they've lost their star player. We can't sleep on that. We've got to think of something that's going to keep this team competitive on our side and make sure that we can stand up to these teams when they start adding and adding and adding, which is going to happen very, very soon. And they've got to think about that. They can't just sit there and do nothing, because these teams are going to be more competitive as time goes by. They're not going to sit there idly by and be a basement team. They're going to want to do better. And we're going to have to see how that plays out. And that's why you need someone like Randy or Rosarena or somebody like that on this team who can provide some sort of spark, inspire some confidence, and make people feel like those $10 hot dogs are worth it, all right, because otherwise it's not looking too good. So we've got to take a quick break and come back and talk about the Seattle Kraken, who are also in a rather interesting situation as well. One of my favorite topics, hockey talk here on Seattle Sports. We'll get to that coming up next here on the show. Seattle Sports Weekend This is Seattle Sports Weekend with myself, Warren, filling in for the show today. And we're going to talk one of my favorite topics here on the show, Seattle Kraken hockey, and the Seattle Kraken have had, I would say, a rather rocky start to their season, you could say. Right now they're sitting at 6-8-2, and there's definitely time to turn this thing around. They do have a couple of decent win streaks on their record. Right now riding a two-game win streak, which is something, I'll say. But it's becoming pretty clear that more firepower is going to be necessary to solve this offensive issue that they've got. They're really lacking in that department, losing to teams like Ottawa 2-0. They lost to Montreal as well. Did have a nice comeback game against Chicago the other night, won that game 7-2. So that is a very promising sign, though that team is absolute garbage. So the fact they won that game is probably not too surprising. And I do want to comment right now, because everybody wants to talk about the goalie situation. Grubauer, is he good enough to be the starting goalie? The answer is obviously yes. I mean, I don't even know why that's a debate, to be honest with you. So some people like to give Grubauer a hard time, say he's not the goalie that we need in Seattle to make this team really competitive on the ice. But you cannot win these games if you don't have somebody like Grubauer in net. And when he's in net, he's giving you a chance to win the game. And it's really up to the rest of the team to get the job done. Now, I just want to say there is not a magic solution to goaltending. It just doesn't work that way. There's nobody you can post a shutout every single night. It just doesn't work that way. And Grubauer gives you a chance to win. He keeps the game close. And at this point, that's really all you can ask for. You've got all these teams out there with this very, very inconsistent goaltending. You've got Edmonton, for example, that really is turning it around right now, but still struggles a bit in net. They don't really have a star goalie they can really ride and rely on. And the fact that Seattle's got that is extremely promising. I mean, to have somebody you can look to and say, hey, Grubauer is going to be all right back there. You just have to get it done going over the blue line. That really says a lot, I think. And I would say that Seattle is actually in a very good position right now, given that they really don't need goaltending or defense at all, for that matter. Some nights we struggle. I mean, it's fair to say that. But for the most part, we've got these very, very core positions filled. We just need to think about what we're going to do going forward if we want to be more competitive. So what can you really do about offense? Well, it's going to be difficult because we only have about $573,000 in cap space left, which is not a lot. It's better than a lot of teams. A lot of Vancouver Canucks who have a big fat zero in place for cap space right now. But you're still not going to be able to go out there and get any star or big name player for that much money. You're going to need a lot more than that, obviously. And you have to ask the question, do you really want to do that right now? So at this point, you can either let the season play out, or you can make some sort of move right now while you still can. Based on the fact that there's a lot of promise in this team, I think it's really tempting just to let these guys play and just kind of see what happens. I mean, you can stay close in the playoff pursuit, maybe make a move you think you really, really need to. It's really going to be a big game changer for the team. It's going to win a lot more games. Maybe you do it. But Ron Francis, the general manager, has stated that he really wants to build this team slowly and make it a perennial contender that doesn't really have this cap issue that a lot of teams are facing right now. I mean, you don't want to get yourself in a situation where you are spending right against the cap and you can't move these players out. We're in a very good position if you think about the fact that we don't need to spend in these really core positions, like goaltending. We're pretty much good to go for the foreseeable future. And I think it's fair to say that rash decisions will not accomplish this goal at all. Yes, we do need some more firepower, but it's at the expense of the future if we do that right now. So when you think about this, you know, you can trade away some picks, you can trade away some of these guys we're developing, but do you really want to do that just to maybe make yourself more competitive at this point? I think we've seen that this team can actually do a lot with a little bit. Last season was a very good, clear indication of that, the fact that these guys really turned it around halfway through, got themselves in the playoffs, even won a series, which is absolutely massive, that they got as far as they did. And the fact that they can do that really does show that it is possible. Maybe we are missing some of those pieces from last year that we wish we could have back, like Carson Soucy, guys like that. But for the fact that we can get that far really does show that it is possible and that we don't need to go out and make these, I want to say, bad decisions that a lot of teams do tend to make. And as a Canucks fan myself, I will say I'm a Kraken fan, of course, growing up in Seattle, but I did watch the Canucks as a child. And the Canucks have been this team that really dug themselves in one of the deepest holes you could possibly imagine with their cap space a couple years ago. They had this guy, Louis Erickson. He was taking up so much space, and he was a player that nobody even liked. I mean, he was just so bad at his position. And you know the guy's trying. I mean, he's putting in an effort. He means well, but it's just not working out, and you're in a situation where you can't get rid of him. The right decision probably would have been to let his contract expire, let him ride off into the sunset, not come back. But, of course, the GM at the time really wanted to keep the team happy, keep the fans of the team happy. He says, okay, we'll trade him. We'll send him to Arizona. We're not going to get that much back. They got a couple guys, but really the issue that happened there was the fact that we lost out on some very decent picks that we really should have kept around in that team to stay competitive, to keep this development going. And if you want to stay competitive in the NHL, you've got to have these picks that you can trade and flip to other teams for other pieces if you need them. But that became a real issue for the Canucks, just trading off these picks, trading, trading, trading. And they got him in a situation where they just couldn't dig themselves out of the hole. And just now, in 2023, almost ten years after some of this stuff really started to become a problem, they're finally, finally out of the hole but still up against the cap. So you don't want to be in a situation, if you're a Seattle Kraken fan, you want to play the long game right now. And I have to say, Seattle fans, especially Seattle Kraken fans, some of the new fans, are not being as patient as they probably should. This is a team you've got to exercise some patience with. They are a new team. Yet you might want to be like the Las Vegas Golden Knights, who did become this fantastic team right away, the Stanley Cup contender, and now Stanley Cup champion. But, you know, we're playing the long game. We can win this thing if we just be patient. And that's what we've really got to do right now. And I just got to poke a little bit of fun at Seattle Kraken fans right now. Some of the new fans, I will say, because I saw this in a post on the Facebook group for the team. Somebody had asked if it would be more advantageous if the coach of the Seattle Kraken would decline some of the penalties, or the power plays in this case, if you will, because it seems like we do better when we're not on the power play. And I just want to say, it doesn't work like that in hockey. This is not the Seattle Seahawks. When you get a power play, you are going on the power play. There is no declining that power play, that penalty. It's not like watching football. So just keep that in mind going forward. What we really need to do is improve our power play, yes, but this is not a solution. And the only reason why they thought they should do this is because we seem to play better when we're not on the power play. So I think the real problem we want to focus on there is not the fact that we want to decline those penalties or decline those power plays. We just have to get better on the power play. And that's probably going to take some more development, maybe bring some other guys in in the future. But for now, let's just focus on that and not treat this like football. So we have a little bit more time in this hour, and I want to talk about the Seattle Seahawks real quick because we are going to bring in some experts in the next hour who want to join the show. So we'll get to that later. But the Seattle Seahawks have had a rough week as well. And if you're a Seahawks fan like me, that last game was extremely, extremely painful to watch. And I just want to say that I really do love the Geno Smith story. I think he's a great person and a fantastic athlete in a lot of ways. And I like Drew Locke as well. I mean, he's also a very interesting guy, has a lot going for him too. But I think there's one thing that has to be said, and it's just that these guys probably are not the solution to our problem. And last offseason there was a ton of conversation about the Seahawks needing to sign Geno Smith to a major contract and make sure he gets paid, in quotation marks. And as you know, a lot of people were saying, oh, we've got to make sure we get him paid, he's a great player, he's going to be this great quarterback who's our saving grace, the solution to our problems. And, you know, I was a bit shocked to hear that because, you know, a lot of people were saying this, and it just didn't seem to make sense from a sports management perspective. Now I'm not saying that I'm, you know, bragging about how I'm some sort of sports prophet right now or a football expert, but I just don't think it makes any sense to put all your eggs in one basket, and one basket that's not even tested the true test of time, which is the fact that you've got to play in some games season after season to show that you can keep doing what you're doing. And there were some fantastic moments last season that Geno Smith looked fantastic. And, you know, we've had some great moments this season as well. I'm not taking away from that. But the bad this season really does outweigh the good. Too many interceptions, holding onto the ball too long, big, big problems for us right now. And I think it really does show that we just need more in Seattle. We need somebody who's going to be an all-around starter quarterback that we can really rely on in these really tough games to get the job done. And Russell Wilson, I will say, he had his flaws. I'm not a huge Russell Wilson fan per se. I want to see him do well in Denver. I mean, all the best to him. But the fact that he left the Seahawks doesn't really break my heart. But he was a guy that you could rely on in some of these games to keep you in it. I will say that I don't think that Russell Wilson is ever going to win another Super Bowl in Seattle. I just don't think that's realistic at all, especially based on how much money he wanted to get paid to be the quarterback in Seattle. But I think you've got to find somebody else who can take over that role of being the guy who can provide that level of confidence. Now, I think the best thing that Seattle can do right now is really look to this NFL draft for some sort of solution to the issue. I don't think you're going to trade your way out of this. There's some amazing talent out there coming up. And a lot of it is right here in the Pacific Northwest, actually. I mean, you look at Michael Penix, Jr., what he's done this season for UW. It's been incredible. I mean, you've also got Bo Nix in Oregon. Either of these guys I could see being developed into this quarterback that Seattle could really use in the future if these guys were interested in joining the Seahawks. And either of these guys could be a potential solution to the problem. And since we just talked about the Seattle Kraken and the importance of playing the long game, this is the perfect opportunity for the Seahawks to do the exact same thing. I say write the season out, see what kind of talent you can bring in in the offseason, and let's take some pressure off Keno in the meantime. I think that pressure has been way too much, and I think at this point it's far too unrealistic to actually make it happen. So we've got the Eagles next week, and that game is in many ways a must-win game if the Seahawks want to stay competitive and stay in the hunt. And even if you get through this game, somehow you still have all these other games coming up that are going to be very challenging as well. And, you know, anything can happen. I mean, this is the NFL. I've seen some crazy things happen over the years. But even with the struggles over on the Eagles, this game is going to be extremely tough to win. And even if they find some way to pull this off and get through this, the schedule is still tough. I mean, you're not looking like you're going to be a playoff team unless you can pretty much run the table the rest of the season. And I don't think it's really realistic at this point to assume that Seattle can do that. I believe with the right players it's possible it could be done. But in this scenario, I just think it's too late and it's not going to be enough to actually make it in the playoffs. And even if you do make it, you're probably not going to win more than one game at the most. So, unfortunately, it's not looking good for the Seahawks the rest of the season. So I think it's really time to buckle down and really focus on the off season, think about what this team is going to do from now until then that's going to make this team more competitive for 2024, 2025. To proceed on this crash course and not standing out, just kind of blending in is really not the solution. And I think we all know it. I'm sure the Seattle Seahawks management knows that as well. So let's see what we can do in this off season. It's got to be something big. It's got to be some of these big name players that are out there right now winning games in college football. Michael Penix, Jr. We're looking at you, my friends. It's the Seattle Sports Weekend Show. Coming up, we're going to talk some soccer, a topic that I really don't know much about. And we have an expert joining the show to talk about that. It's Seattle Sports Weekend with myself, Warren. We'll see you next hour. ♪♪♪