Earlier this week, former Seattle Mariners outfielder Braden Bishop told us what a fan he is of the team's hiring of Tanner Swanson as bench coach.

Swanson, who is the former catching coordinator for the New York Yankees, is also a former assistant coach at the University of Washington, where Bishop played.

Well, the praise didn't stop with Bishop, as ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney also discussed the hiring in the most recent edition of the "Refuse to Lose Territory" podcast.

"Yes, very respected within the Yankees organization.

Look, there's so many teams that are known for one particular skill within the sport. You know, Tampa Bay Rays for years have been the team that rehabilitated pitchers and brought them forward. The Milwaukee Brewers, because of their great catching coordinator, Charlie Green, they have excelled at developing catchers who are really good at framing, you know, on and on. Like, their different teams are known for different things.

The Yankees in recent years have had as good of catching development as any organization in the sport. And Tanner Swanson is behind that. And he's highly respected.

And I tweeted about this the other day. You know, between Jason (Kanzler) being named the Mariners manager, someone who's known as a hitting guru, and Tanner Swanson being named the bench coach, and someone who's really good at this, I've had conversations, front office people like, 'we're starting to see a trend in baseball.'

And last year it was really brought out by what the Washington Nationals did, where you don't necessarily hire a field general type manager. You bring on somebody like in the NFL, who's a defensive coordinator or an offensive coordinator, somebody who excels at one part of the game, who's an excellent teacher, and that's who the Mariners, what they seem to be collecting, really great teachers.

And when you think about where the sport is, it makes sense. It totally makes sense because so many young guys now promoted the big leagues and they haven't had, I mean, back in the day, you know, you would play, you know, 800 games in minor leagues or whatever the number would be, much more time spent in the minor leagues than now.

Now they're brought to the big leagues sooner. They're still learning on the job. Tanner Swanson is someone who I think absolutely is going to, you know, he's very good at developing catchers. I think he'll continue to do that. And I'm sure that someone Jason's going to rely on."

It's fair to ask: Swanson is elite at coaching catchers, but he's going to be the bench coach. Will the Mariners have a separate catching coordinator, meaning that Swanson won't really work with the likes of Cal Raleigh? Will Swanson and a catching guru work together in the catching department? Or, will Swanson cover the catching while also serving as the bench coach?

It's just one small dynamic at play here, but it's something that needs to be thought about heading into 2027.

Swanson coached at the Washington junior college ranks before going to UW and the Yankees.

The looming MLB lockout is just 2.5 weeks away from stopping the offseason in its tracks, so the Mariners are at work trying to figure out how to make their team better in a compressed time frame.

So far, the M's have most aggressively been linked to longtime Chicago Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki. Now 32 years old, he's coming off a 26-homer season, and he's also coming off a solid defensive year in right field. The Mariners would have to give him at least $100 million, but it might be worth it in order to get back into the Japanese market. The M's haven't signed a Japanese player since Yusei Kikuchi in 2019.

The lockout will affect on Dec. 1 at 9:00 p.m. PT presuming there is no new Collective Bargaining Agreement. There doesn't figure to be. As a result, the lockout could last all winter, and there is a chance that games in 2027 are affected.

Of course, nobody wants that.

The Mariners are scheduled to open the season on March 25 at home against the Boston Red Sox.