The Seattle Mariners Have LOST OUT on Jorge Polanco… Now What?! | Mailbag Monday

The Seattle Mariners Have LOST OUT on Jorge Polanco… Now What?! | Mailbag Monday

The Mariners are reportedly front runners to land Brennan Donovan in a trade with the Cardinals. But what if they don’t get him? Especially after already losing out on Jorge Palanco. We’ll answer that and more coming up here on Mailbag Monday. Colobby, hit it. You are Locked On Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the locked on podcast network. Your team every day. Ohoy sailors. It is Monday, December 15th, 2025. You’re listening to the Lockdown Mars podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network. My name is Titan Gazal and I’m joined as always by my co-host Colby Patnode. We’re two lifelong Maris fans who’ve been covering the team for over half a decade. And today we’re going to open up the mailbag like we do here every Monday and answer some of your Mariners questions. But before we get into it, I want to shout out our title sponsor today, FanDuel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. And just as a reminder, we are now officially in our three show a week portion of our schedule until February 2nd. So we will be posting episodes here on locked on on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and episodes of our Patreon show on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Obviously, if something breaks on a Tuesday or a Thursday or on the weekend, we will do a show that day so long as our schedule allows for it. And uh you know, so you won’t have to you won’t have to wait. You don’t have to worry about us, you know, waiting until Monday if something happens on a Saturday to talk about it. We will try and get that done ASAP. Um and then once February 2nd rolls back around, we will go back to five shows a week for the remainder of the year here on Locked On. All right, let’s get into your questions here on Mailbag Monday. We’re going to start with sad PNW sports fan here on Mailbag Monday. I’m feeling like after Palano, it’s Brennan Donovan, Catel Marte, or bust. What are some other options to get a bat at second or third base to make me feel all right about our chances to land a quality bat there? Just feels like a home run or a strikeout right now. Colobby, I I think any list here uh has to start with Brandon Laauo, right? Yeah. Um, pretty clearly the uh the best of the we’ll call them backup plans, whatever you want to call them. Um, Lao is a guy that we’ve talked about a lot. Um, we honestly don’t know if the Mariners really like him all that much. He’s been like a popular trade target of like anybody who’s who’s covered the team for the last three or four years now. Uh, but we’ve never actually heard that they’ve done work on him or that, you know, they they’ve been all that interested. We heard that they liked Yandi Diaz. We’ve heard that we heard that they liked Randy Rosarena. Like, typically we we hear things like this and I don’t know if they like Lao or not, but you know, you do have to get some kind of proven bat uh this winter and so you you might have to take a shot on a guy that you don’t love, but maybe think he’s just okay. and Lao, he’s going to hit a lot of home runs, which you kind of need right now. You’ve lost a little bit of power this winter. You need the home runs and and Lao is the guy who’s going to give them to you. Even if he only plays, you know, 120 games, he’s probably going to hit 25 to 30 home runs, which is something you really need. Um, so yeah, Lao’s the number one. Uh, when you move past Lao, uh, I think, you know, you look at a guy like Jay Croninworth, uh, who some people really don’t like, which is weird because he’s a pretty good player. He’s not an all-star or anything, but he’s a pretty good player. Uh Jeff McNeel is another guy who is kind of like a a poor man’s Donovan. It’s just he’s gonna cost twice as much money uh and is not quite as good and and a little bit more floor there. I mean, Donovan has such a high floor and McNeel, you know, he was pretty good this year, but was pretty mid the two years before that. So, uh, but you only get him for a year, which might be more to the Mariner speed because he’s going to be cheaper to acquire monetarily. And again, he doesn’t block anybody for the long term. So, I think that’s kind those are kind of the big three. I think Laauo is is the number one of the the backup plans. And then it’s kind of Croninworth, it’s it’s McNeel. Um, if you want to go like a slot or like a couple tiers below that, it’s Willie Castro and Luis Renheifo. Uh, and then if you want to go even below that, you can kind of go like, hey, let’s let’s just get Andy Aubanz to be a platoon partner with Cole Young. Um, and you know, he can he usually hits lefties very well and he’s a good defender. Uh, he’s nice player that we can get pretty cheap. Um, and then there’s the trade route. I’m a fan of Edmundo Sosa, but he’s kind of more of a platoon than he is an everyday guy. But, uh, he does a lot of really good things. You could go uh Alec Bow. I would just throw him out there. I know people hate Alec Bow, but whatever. Look, to to uh to to the person who asked this question’s point, not a lot of uh confidence inspiring uh options here after the first couple names you listed. A B’s a fine player. Uh but uh you know, Edmund Mundo is a good player. Andy is a good player. They’re just they’re role players. They’re not like what Andy Aanz is a good player. He’s I mean he’s a good like role player. He’s a he’s a weak side platoon hitter at best. Yeah. Dylan Moore who’s a fine player. So yeah. Um and then yeah obviously there’s bounceback guys like Willie Castro and and uh Renifo. So yeah uh I don’t think the Mariners are going to get left uh you know without a chair when the music stops. I don’t think they’re going to get left. I think they’re they’re going to get one of those three guys that we talked about. Um, you know, maybe there’s even somebody we haven’t maybe the market on Gino crashes so much that he comes back and and that’s a possibility. Yeah, I think now that Palano is off the board, I think Gino’s back on the menu for the Mariners possibly. Uh, I think we’re a couple weeks away from that being a real conversation. But uh yeah, I mean cuz while the focus is on second base and and DH, like fine or second base and third base, that’s fine. You’re really looking for a primary DH. Like you want the bat and if the bat could play second or third, that would be awesome. That’s ideal. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you might just have to get the best bat you can to replace because that’s actually what you’re replacing is the offensive production, not the position. Uh I I think he cast a wider net than just second base. But yeah, you know, we want to specifically look at guys who can play second or third and then also DH a little bit. Lao or allow others to DH. I guess uh Lao is is kind of the the number one in that regard once you take Marte and and Donovan off the board. Um one throw out there just so many different things would have to go in a very particular set of ways for this to make sense. Uh, but we know the Mariners really like Nicoer. So, um, you know, again, that probably requires the Cubs to sign, you know, another infielder. And then the Mariners would have to figure out a deal with the Cubs. And the Cubs aren’t going to, you know, they already don’t want to spend a lot of money this winter and they’re trying to win the World Series next year. Well, they’re saying they’re trying to win it, blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, okay, well, do you want to give up four years of Gabe Spire for one year of Nicoer? I I don’t know. Right. So, again, I would say that one’s highly unlikely, but just throw them out there. Just keep that name in the back of your head. Uh and if the uh the Cubs do go out and they do, you know, sign Bregman or more likely somebody like Gino, uh then we can have a conversation about Nicoer because it makes a lot more sense at that point. But yeah, I think you’re looking at Lao uh and then Croninworth McNeel as kind of like the three primary pivots uh for the Mariners. Yeah. Uh to your point earlier though, it’s pretty clear that the Mar’s approach to this is just we want the best bat that we can get. So if you’re casting a wider net outside of just, you know, second base, third base, then we’re talking about Yandi Diaz, we’re talking about Gino Suarez, maybe Alec Burles, you know, but if the the Cardinals are, you know, being what you feel is unreasonable about Brennan Donovan, they’re probably going to be very unreasonable about Alec Burles. So Ivon Herrera. Yeah. Havon Herrera. Yeah, there’s there’s there’s some names there’s certainly some names that the Mars could fall back on, but he’s apparently being shot like I mean, he he kind of got back on the horse in the second half of the season. So, yeah. And again, you’re looking for a DH who can stand at third base if you need him to for a couple weeks and that’s Vento. So, uh yeah, there there are other options out there. It’s just yeah, it’s if you’re specifically looking at second base, it’s the five guys at the top. It’s it’s Donovan Marte, uh, Croninworth, Laauo, McNeel, blah, blah, blah, and then there’s the whole then there’s a big drop off after those guys. There’s drop offs within those guys, but whatever. You guys get the point. We will answer more of your questions here in just a moment, but first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdowns podcast is brought to you once again by FanDuel. NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. That’s what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You’re not just watching the game, you’re reacting to it in real time. With FanDuel, you can place bets as the action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight moment. Live betting is best when the game starts to shift, a receiver gets hot, a defense tightens up, or the momentum flips after a turnover. FanDuel lets you jump into the moment as live spreads and money lines adjust instantly and player props update as guys heat up. 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And by the way, we have a lot of questions about Brennan Donovan, so get ready. Uh JJ wants to know uh they’re either about Brendan Donovan or they are Brendan Donovan adjacent. So yeah. So JJ wants to know if we are to believe Ryan Divish’s statement about the M’s being interested in Donovan even if Palano resigns, could we see a scenario of acquiring both Brandon Laauo and Brendan Donovan? Brandon and Brennan. Sure, that’ll be fun. Um, yeah, I already get the lows and the lows mixed up. Uh, so what’s the other one I always get? There’s one other tandem I always get mixed up. Anyways, um, remember when you when you called Chris Bryant, Chris Story, and Trevor Story, Trevor Bryant. Yeah, that was a fun one. Yeah, I always get the Mod Rosario and the uh the other guy that was traded in the Menz. Yeah. Um, anyways, um, yeah, I I think they should like because if you’re willing to do that for Polo, you should be willing to do that because again, the idea there was clearly like, okay, Polo’s the DH and Donovan’s the second baseman. Perfect. We got two bats and and our lineup is now one of the best in in, you know, the American League. Maybe baseball. Uh, will they? I don’t know because the way Dvish worded it, it sounds very much like, you know, Polo and Donovan was kind of the exception. But he also just said, you know, even if they get Polo, they would still be in on Donovan. So, I guess that doesn’t exclude the idea that they might, you know, be willing to do that for other players as well because, you know, Polo and and uh and Lao, I mean, turns out Polo’s making a lot more money than Lao this year, but um but uh yeah, I mean, I think that was the plan is that like, hey, we can afford both of these guys. Well, you can afford both of uh you know, Lao and and Donovan. So, yes, I think that should be the plan. Will it? I don’t know. Probably a big chunk of this has to do with how cheap Lao would be. Uh because we know Donovan’s going to be somewhat costly. Uh but not ridiculously so. Um so yeah, if you get Lao for like Teddy McGra or whatever, then yeah, I mean you probably could do that. I think they should. Will they? I don’t know. I don’t have a good feel for that. Um but I’ve, you know, long believed they needed two bats. Uh, and I was after Naylor, they needed two. And I thought, you know, pretty good chance Polo would be one of those. And now the the the language that Jerry’s been using pretty frequently is like, yeah, we want to add one more bat. One more bat. One more bat. And I hope they add one more bat part was in addition to bringing back Panco, uh, which we now know is not possible. So, could they do it? Yes. Should they do it? Yes. Will they do it? I don’t know. I don’t have a great feel for that, but my hunch is probably not, but they should. I think their preference would be more so to pair Donovan with a free agent, especially because they would only be paying $5.4 million to Donovan, uh, per his arbitration projection. Find a free agent bat that puts up roughly Polo’s, you know, slash line that you can get for less than $15 million because Polo got 20. How much gonna get especially like if Gino was more so being looked at as like first base DH type rather than a third base one which I think he would be like I think it was Jude or Dish said like if they did bring back Gino would view him he would just occasionally play third base right he would play some third base but he would DH and play some first base as well. So, like the Mars do seem very intent on like if they do bring in this other bat, he has to be able to play other places, not just DH. So, I think that eliminates the, you know, Marceluna idea, which should be eliminated for another reason entirely, but uh like they’re not going they’re if they’re going to bring in that second DH bat, they want that guy to at least be able to play somewhere else somewhat regularly. Yeah. at the very least they they’d have to be able to play some first base and then you can kind of like flip-flop them and Naylor and the DH spot. Um so like Yanni Diaz could still theoretically work but um but yeah I don’t Mark you know like Yeah. Yeah. Like to me like the idea that I brought up would be like Donovan and then taking a shot on Kazuma Okamoto. Yeah. or if Gino’s market gets to a point where he’s making like 15ish million bucks even then probably like a one or two year deal at most that the mayors would be willing to give. So yeah, I mean I don’t maybe they just take the the offer they were going to give to Gino or to Polo and they just go offer it to Gino. Uh but we don’t know what the final offer was. Uh apparently it was extremely competitive. Yeah. whatever. The the problem is though, like, you know, I don’t think they value those two guys the same. So, I don’t think they would be willing to offer him the polo contract. I don’t either. But, you know, again, if you already had that money earmarked for a DH, you know, primary DH who could also play some other spots in your infield, well, that’s Gino. And paying Gino, you know, $15 million a year isn’t egregious even coming off of the year that he came off of. Like, that that’s fine. You can live with that, especially on a one or two-year deal. Uh but yeah, I think they should be very willing. In fact, I think that should be the the goal, the primary goal uh would be to do that. And I would I would sacrifice the the quality of the second bullpin arm I brought in to make that happen. to me that that primary DH along with a Donovan type is the best thing the Mariners can realistically do uh to increase their odds to win the World Series uh this winter is is Donovan plus the bat plus another bat. I think that’s going to be more impactful than Donovan and like Luke Weaver, which would still be fine, but like I I’d prefer the bat to the to the arm. Yeah, agreed. So, to go back to your original question, JJ, um, should they do it? Yes. Will they do it? I have a hard time seeing it. Dumper wants to know, “What type of deal for Donovan would you describe as an overpay? Is it anything that involves Sloan? What would you say the right price is?” To me, the right price is like Durangelo Sanja or Laz Montis as the headliner and then anything below that. So, no Sloan, no Anderson, no Emerson, no Farmelo. A Royal I’d be willing to do. Sure. It sounds to me without any inside info on this front that the Mariners will not trade Emerson, Sloan, Anderson, uh, or even Formelo this winter. I think those just about anybody. Yeah, I think those guys are largely untouchable. Obviously, you know, the very right player comes along, fine, whatever. But Donovan is a three, maybe four win player at best. Like, that’s his ceiling. They’re not going to give up, you know, six years, well, seven years of Anderson, seven years of anybody they think is going to be an all-star, they’re not going to give that up. Uh I I Yeah. Then you go to the SA, the Laz, the Aoyo, the Felonin, like that group. They’ll give those guys up. That’s just kind of my feel for it. I think they want to give up Darangelo. Like if they’re going to trade anybody from that group, they would prefer to give up Darangelo. That’s my hunch. I I don’t know that for sure, but um yeah, I think it’s one of those guys. And then if they want the other guy, too, they’re going to have to add something on their side. And that would probably be a bullpen arm. We talked about Matt Swanson, you get him for five years. Riley O’Brien, you get him for five years. Uh they’re Jojo Romero, I guess, but makes less sense now that you have Ferrar. Uh so yeah, I think it’s one of those two guys is the headliner. Uh and then there’s some more bulk behind it, but probably still quality bulk, not like, you know, a bunch of Josh Karens. Um I and I do think, you know, I think Ben Williamson makes some sense here, uh as kind of like a tertiary piece because they want to move on from Aronado. There you go. Boom. So again, I think if it is like a Laz and SA, I think you’re getting another piece and I think it’s probably a bullpen arm. Honestly, I I still feel really good about the offer that we made in our offseason plan. Uh I feel like that was aggressive. Uh I feel like it was appropriately like it was the most amount of risk I was willing to take on a deal. And keep in mind in that trade, we were also getting back Riley O’Brien. So yeah, I think anybody in your top anybody from that big four that we mentioned, uh, that’s an overpay. I think any of your four homegrown starters, that’s a drastic overpay. Uh, again at for for Donovan straight up, that’s an all an overpay. If they want to start throwing around Herrera in in a trade package, too, then we can have conversations because there’s my DH, there’s my second baseman. We can have a different conversation. But, uh, any idea that the Mariners are going to trade Bryce Miller for a Donovan, like it’s just not going to happen because the the Cardinals don’t have the the Miller replacement that the Mariners would want. Yeah. So, yeah, any of the homegrown four starters, they’re out. Uh, and any of the Mariners pretty much consensus top four prospects. Top top five. Top four. Emerson, Farmelo, the two pitchers, top four. Yeah. Uh, I would be shocked if they were traded this winter. Um, and they’re not going to be traded in a Donovan package straight up like the you’re the Cardinals are going to have to add to their package and they don’t want to do that blah blah blah. So, uh, yeah, it’s it’s anything more than somebody in the SAO laz camp I think would be a a slight overpay and then obviously the amount of the overpay depends on which actual player would get traded. All right, we will answer more of your questions in just a moment, but first a reminder. This episode of the Locked Times podcast is brought to you by Game Time. The World Cup is coming back to North America for the first time since 1994. And with 48 teams for the first time ever, it’s going to be massive. But let’s be honest, getting tickets is usually the hardest part. That’s why the Game Time app is clutch. Finally giving fans a real advantage when it comes to snagging seats. 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And you’re listening to the Lockdown Merrors podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. As always, if you want to hear from me and Colobby even more and help support the show, we have a Patreon. It’s called Control the Zone. And on there, we talk Mariners, Seahawks, all that good stuff. For more information, go to patreon.com/controlthezone. Link in the description of this episode. Next question here on mailbag Monday comes from whose house who wants to know with all the rumors of Mariners after Lao Marte Donovan and Jojo Romero. If you could rank the trades in order you guys think most likely to happen and least likely to happen. Second part you think uh St. Louis would trade us Donovan and Jojo in the same deal if they are asking for multiple top prospects. Yeah, I think that’s kind of the idea, especially that we were talking about towards the uh the end of the last segment that you know, if the Cardinals threw in something else, then maybe you’d be more willing to part with X, right? So, uh yeah, Romero, pretty interesting. Like I said last week, you know, just because you already have two lefties, Inspire and and Ferrer doesn’t mean that you couldn’t add another lefty. It’s totally fine to have three lefties in your bullpen. They’re all pretty good. you know, with the cost of left-handed relief pitching being shown over the league, you might just flip Jojo in a separate deal to get a bat that you want. Um, or maybe you make Gabe Spire available because let me tell you, Zerpa is worth what he got. Gabe Spire is worth a freaking mansion. So, there you go. Thank you for censoring yourself. Yeah. Um, so so good. Most likely. Most likely to least likely. I I think Donovan’s at the top. Uh I’d say Lao’s second, Marte third pretty clearly. Like pretty big space between him and Lao, too. Or Lao and him. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. Donovan. Like which one is most likely to be traded? Well, the reliever is always the most likely guy to be traded because he’s the cheapest guy, but because of what we know about the Mariners and and kind of where this whole thing is trending, Donovan has to be considered the most likely. Um, Marte conflicting reports on him this weekend that he was the Mariners’s main target. Everybody else says like, nope, they’re they’re just not going to pay that price. Um, so we’ll see. Again, Marte’s market could be falling. We don’t know. Uh they’ve been asking for an insane amount. Like I don’t know. Apparently they got offered Pepio and they said no. Which if you’re looking for a starting pitcher like that’s pretty good pretty good return for Mart. I have to imagine there’s more to that than what we know. Like are the Rays really going to take on $93 million guaranteed over five years? Sure. Were they asking the Diamondbacks to eat some money on that? Well, it just feels like if that was the deal, it would have been done. So it feels like there’s like some pieces we don’t know that maybe there was also a report that they had Cam Schlitler offered to them for Gino Suarez, right? You know, we were like, “Well, why didn’t they take that? Why isn’t that deal just done?” Because it never existed, right? Yeah. Like what probably happened is that the the the Diamondbacks went to them were like, “We want this guy.” And they were like, “Um, we’ll think about it, I guess.” Yeah. And also in general, have the have the Diamondbacks ever, you know, come down from an insane asking price on one of their players? Yeah. So, two of them. On two of them. Yeah. In the same month, in the same week. Yeah. To the same. So, it’s possible that they’re, you know, because again, I I really do think this like 10 and five rates thing is it’s a real like stressor on them. Mhm. Um, so yeah, I think they might they might start to loosen up here over the coming week. I mean, they resigned Mel Kelly, so like is it super important for them to get a starter who will be in their opening day rotation now or I don’t really get why that’s so important to them. I agree with you, but you’re trading one of the best players in baseball. Yeah, like it’s hard to do that and get better. Like I get you still have Purdomo and Carol, but you’re not going to be that good next year if you trade Katel Marte. I’m sorry. I mean, probably not. It’s probably like a French 500 team, but anyway. So, like, so like why does it matter if the pitcher that if like the headliner pitcher that you get back in a deal is ready to roll by opening day or not? Why does that matter if the if the Mars were like if the Mars were actually like, “Hey, you know, we’ll give you Ryan Sloan.” Are you really going to get hung up on, “Well, but we want Bryce Miller because Bryce Miller could start for us right now.” Like, come on. Yeah. Um, so yeah, ultim Marte is unlikely. I just haven’t buried it as much as other people have. Like there are people out there like 0% chance and I’m just like 2 3% chance at least. Like so yeah, I I would say it’s Donovan, Lao, Jojo, Marte, but Jojo is mostly because a he might be included in the Donovan trade and also b like he’s a reliever. He’s just not going to be that expensive. Although again, look at what Zerpa just cost. Like uh so maybe Romero, you know, honestly, again, if I were the Mariners and like I was getting Romero, I would try to flip him this winter. I would try to make it so Romero didn’t throw a pitch for me. Um and in that regard, I think the Mariners would prefer a Riley O’Brien or a Matt Swanson uh over Romero, even though I’m sure that the Cardinals would prefer to trade Romero than than either of those two guys. But also again, you can have three lefties in your bullpen. Sure. Absolutely. I’m not saying that you just like if you can play plus you play in a division right now that has Yordon Alvarez, that has Cory Seager. For now. Yeah. Seager, especially for now. I don’t care what Chris Young says. For now, I I really want to see what happens if the Red Sox trade for Cory Seager. That’s like peak chaos to me. Yeah. Yeah. just of like the trickle down effect that that would have on the wrestling market. Like there’s two things you know about us guys. We are team brawl and we are team chaos. Yeah. Yeah. And so there you go. But yeah, I I I think based on the reading the tea leaves right now, Donovan Lao technically Jojo, although I’m not sure why he’s in this conversation. Whatever. I guess because they said the Mariners liked him. There was a report that the Mariners liked him. Yeah, there was a report that them and the Yankees, I think. Yankees. Yeah. I mean, I guess I’ll trade Sanja and Laz for Romero and Donovan and then I’ll just flip Romero to the Yankees for like Jazz Chisum. That seems fair again based on what Zerpa just got. I’m just saying. Oh, also, by the way, Jazz Chisum maybe a dark horse in that whole like second base thing. Uh yeah, because apparently that’s not a a non-zero chance type of thing. So yeah, anyways. Yeah, I think that’s that’s the correct order. All right, next question here from Dpanky. Do you think one of the big factors in the price they were willing to pay Polo was the opportunity cost of paying him too much would have all but eliminated any chance at signing a quality free agent uh reliever. I don’t know if it’s necessarily because of the reliever uh but I do think that the Mariners are like we’re not just Jorge Palano away from having the offseason that we want to have. So, I think that they had a certain point that they were willing to go with him that would still allow them to either, you know, go trade for Brennan Donovan or go add that reliever or whatever, do something else, add Willie Castro, whatever. you know, and once they got past that point, they were just like, “Okay, that’s” and also like again, like, you know, like I said in my video that I posted on Twitter the other day, like $20 million a year, even though it’s only for two years, it’s risky specifically for a team like the Mars who have self-imposed financial restrictions cuz Polo has to hit in order to be valuable. And he’s got, you know, several lower body injuries in his past. I mean, he even dealt with them this past year while he was having a career year. And frankly, I just I don’t I don’t buy that he’s a perennial 130 wrc plus guy. I don’t. He’s probably gonna be more of like a 115 120 wrc plus guy. Is that worth $20 million a year to specifically the Seattle Mariners? Probably not. I mean, clearly it wasn’t like because they let him go. But what’s interesting is we did hear uh you know on Saturday that like the Mariners made an offer that was described as extremely competitive. Yeah. And I don’t know that I assume that’s coming from the Mariners. But I don’t know the way it was written it kind of made it sound like the Polo’s agent was like no the Mariners made a very good offer. It’s just you know the Mets. There was a lot of info coming from Polo’s side and Kramer article specifically. Yeah. And keep in mind like I I don’t about wanting to play near his dad and all that, right? And that’s again like understandable. Yeah. I don’t 100% understand how the taxes work and all this, but I know New York has a high state income tax and I know Washington doesn’t have one. So there is a pretty decent chance that Polo might if the offers were extremely close, Polo might have given up money act like because of the tax situation to play New York to be closer to his dad. So like if the Mariners offered 18 and the Mets offered 20 like you know that they he might ultimately have lost money. I don’t know I because we don’t know what the Mariners offer is. I’m not going to go through the tax code because obviously it depend you played three games in you know New York this week and then you played three in Seattle like those get taxed differently so whatever it’s a headache I don’t care about it I’m not going to learn about it but yeah it’s possible he actually may have ended up giving some money back to go to New York but at the end of the day yeah I think I think it is like this is our price this is the most we’re willing to do because we still have other things we want to get done and we we just don’t think that you’re that guy you’re not the guy who’s you we sign you and we’re World Series favorites. Like they have other things they want to do. So I think your your instinct there is correct. Um and yeah, it just the Mets kind of came out of nowhere. I my hunch is this came together really fast and I I think the Mariners, you know, I think the Mariners thought this was a possibility because they were already setting themselves up to pivot pretty quickly. Uh, so I I don’t think unlike, you know, such a weird sentence to say, unlike in 2024, last winter where they were caught completely off guard by not signing Carlos Santana, it feels like the Mariners have kind of like, no, no, we’re not going to do that again. We’re going to be prepared just in case. And so that’s a good sign. But yeah, I I think you’re mostly right. I think it is just like, hey, look, if we give you this, it means we can’t do this, and we feel like we need to do these things to to be where we want to be. So, we’re gonna have to we’re just not going to be able to match that offer. I I have a feeling you’re right. All right, that is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Maris podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day for Colobby Patode. I’m Titan Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at l_mar. You can follow me at Titan Gazales and Colby at CPAD1. That’s CPAT11. We’re also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colobby at MLB Colby and the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram at Lockdown Mariners. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we’ll see you next time. Peace.

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