It's Over. The Fat Lady has Sung. But, Win Anyway GT 9.22.26

[DavidGee24]

This is a frustrating graphic. It's about playing fucking baseball - not just sprint speed. According to this statistic, the relationship to stolen bases would be inversely proportional - Naylor is the slowest, but he leads the M's with 29 steals (5 more than Randy and 7 more than Julio). He can read the pitcher and know when to go.

If JRod could read pitchers like Naylor, he'd easily be Ricky Freaking Henderson. Right now, he relies mostly on his sprint speed which is a fungible asset.

Worse, he's 22-25 on the season, a great success rate. It's just so weird that he swings the bat with reckless abandon but doesn't run that way as well and it seems that indeed it's because he can't read pitchers just like he can't read pitches from the batter's box. This is why I keep saying he has a very low baseball IQ and we need to trade him while others still think he's a potential superstar.

[Big_Maple]

Worse, he's 22-25 on the season, a great success rate. It's just so weird that he swings the bat with reckless abandon but doesn't run that way as well and it seems that indeed it's because he can't read pitchers just like he can't read pitches from the batter's box. This is why I keep saying he has a very low baseball IQ and we need to trade him while others still think he's a potential superstar.

I'm meh on this. I don't hate him and I don't love him. I do think he could be better with some plate discipline - but the again, look at the free-swinging assholes he has to watch as role models on the team. He can't look to anyone on this roster to learn plate discipline, and apparently the coaching staff is about as useful as tits on a bull as well.

He has skills and he has potential. If (when) they get a new coach, maybe he can improve.

There are lots of guys we could have got for 1B - lots of them are better and lots of them are worse. Compared to what we have had the last few years, I think he's an improvement. I try not to go down the road of "if only we had so and so" because so-and-so might suck more than Naylor if he wore a Mariners uniform. Current success on another team does not translate to equal current success if they played for the Mariners.

We are stuck with Naylor - we can't trade him, so let's coach him.

[D-train]

By the way there are no more blackouts anymore. Really it's only Apple TV a few Friday nights a game that are the nuisance so maybe I pay $0.63 a game

[GL_Storm]

Worse, he's 22-25 on the season, a great success rate. It's just so weird that he swings the bat with reckless abandon but doesn't run that way as well and it seems that indeed it's because he can't read pitchers just like he can't read pitches from the batter's box. This is why I keep saying he has a very low baseball IQ and we need to trade him while others still think he's a potential superstar.

I'm meh on this. I don't hate him and I don't love him. I do think he could be better with some plate discipline - but the again, look at the free-swinging assholes he has to watch as role models on the team. He can't look to anyone on this roster to learn plate discipline, and apparently the coaching staff is about as useful as tits on a bull as well.

He has skills and he has potential. If (when) they get a new coach, maybe he can improve.

There are lots of guys we could have got for 1B - lots of them are better and lots of them are worse. Compared to what we have had the last few years, I think he's an improvement. I try not to go down the road of "if only we had so and so" because so-and-so might suck more than Naylor if he wore a Mariners uniform. Current success on another team does not translate to equal current success if they played for the Mariners.

We are stuck with Naylor - we can't trade him, so let's coach him.

His center field defense really declined this year as well though, and if he can't play the position at an above average level, he's basically just a corner outfielder that's getting the Center Field positional WAR adjustment.

[Big_Maple]

His center field defense really declined this year as well though, and if he can't play the position at an above average level, he's basically just a corner outfielder that's getting the Center Field positional WAR adjustment.

This is a spot on analysis - unlike mine. I was still stuck in the "Josh Naylor sucks but we're stuck with him" discussion. I read DavidGee's post too quickly, and assumed we were discussing Naylor.

FWIW, I agree with this. I have patiently waiting for Julio to transform into the messianic superstar the scouts promised us. Any decade now. He’s loaded with every skill you could want. Somehow they just refuse to show up on the same night.

Since we don't have a CF prospect who is MLB-ready, we'd have to replace him by trade. I can't imagine who we would get to replace him. I would love PCA, but he is an absolute franchise cornerstone (he's everything Julio should be). I would love Oneil Cruz. I can't even imagine what a blockbuster deal for Julio would look like.

When we start talking about replacing a 3B or LF, the conversation is not terribly difficult. When we start talking about CF, things get degrees more difficult.

[Michael K.]

Saw a video of a 10 run comeback that the M's had against the Padres in 2016 (Jerry's first Season). Some of the guys hitting during the comeback included, Stephan Romero, Sean O'Malley, Chris Ianetta, Nori Aoki and Dae Ho Lee. Lee, O'Malley and Romero had Pinch Hit for Seth Smith, Adam Lind and Luis Sardinas.

It was cool that they had that one comeback but the thing that stuck out to me is just the trash roster. Jerry has done this for 11 years and somehow still has a job. It's mind boggling.

For some reason there is a narrative going around on X that Jerry took over an impossible situation from Jack Z. No idea how these bogus erroneous recollections are formulated.

But, But, But....the Farm. Look how great the Farm is now! I've never understood the love affair for being having the best farm system. Sure, having a shitty Farm system sucks, but did we have to have a 26 year run of only making the playoffs twice to build the farm back up?

Cue the bullshit "Jerry wasn't here all 26 years". Nope, he wasn't. And he got a pretty damn good major league team that he tore down to the studs because he loves him some farm and only winning 54%. We should all feel lucky. Fucking toolbag, and the fact that so many seem to think he is just fine tells me all I need to know about how important it is to actually win here.

[D-train]

It's truly stunning how many groupies he still has. I guy that after missing the playoffs with the team that should have easily made it told us that we should be thankful that he didn't try very hard to make the World Series and then laughed

[DavidGee24]

His center field defense really declined this year as well though, and if he can't play the position at an above average level, he's basically just a corner outfielder that's getting the Center Field positional WAR adjustment.

FWIW, I agree with this. I have patiently waiting for Julio to transform into the messianic superstar the scouts promised us. Any decade now. He’s loaded with every skill you could want. Somehow they just refuse to show up on the same night.

OPS BY YEAR:
2022 .853
2023 .818
2024 .734
2025 .798
2026 .703 (.638 in the second half)

This is a guy who peaked as a rookie and has steadily regressed with an uptick in 2025. The only way he's going to get back to where he was at 21 is in another team's uniform in a hitter's park. He's about as healthy as a player gets so that's not dragging him down. But I guarantee you that the Mariner front office doesn't see any of this, figures he's just having an off-year (again) and just assumes that he's magically going to become a superstar player next year.

[D-train]

They're also incorporating the cost of hiring a new DJ which will cost additional money if they trade Julio

[Big_Maple]

OPS BY YEAR:
2022 .853
2023 .818
2024 .734
2025 .798
2026 .703 (.638 in the second half)

This is a guy who peaked as a rookie and has steadily regressed with an uptick in 2025. The only way he's going to get back to where he was at 21 is in another team's uniform in a hitter's park. He's about as healthy as a player gets so that's not dragging him down. But I guarantee you that the Mariner front office doesn't see any of this, figures he's just having an off-year (again) and just assumes that he's magically going to become a superstar player next year.

He has peak value right now. If the FO was going to swing a deal, this would be the time. He has about as much chance of regaining an .850 OPS as I do of running a 4 minute mile.

Let's assume the M's did decide to pull the trigger (never happen, but let's play "make believe" for now) - who do they trade for? How do you even calculate a trade like this? You either get a broken down CF from another team (which does us no good) or you get a boatload of untested prospects which is also pretty useless. You get past-his-prime-Mike-Trout, or you get a bunch of guys who wander into centerfield in T-Mobile and say "jeez, it's bigger than it looks on TV..."

Epiphany: We could trade Julio for Jacob Misiorowski AND the fastest of the Famous Racing Sausages. Apparently the Polish Sausage runs 20.3 feet per second. His nickname is the Secretariat of Sausage. Stick a glove in that dude's hand and we're off to the races.