Rick Rizzs, Dave Valle and Shannon Drayer settled in for two hours of Mariners talk Wednesday night on 710 ESPN Seattle’s Hot Stove Show, which was kicked off with an extended visit with manager Scott Servais.

Listen to the Hot Stove Show: Hour 1 | Hour 2

Servais, who is getting ready to hit the road to visit players in Florida and the Dominican Republic, talked about the coaches meetings that were held in Seattle last week and hit on what will be one of the big focuses of spring training. He gave his thoughts on what area of the team have surprising impact, shared insight into Dee Gordon’s transition from second base to center field and talked about his rotation as it stands now.

Next up was Taylor Motter, who joined the show from the Mariners Caravan in Coeur d’Alene – or Coeur de Leon as he pronounced it (he did much better with Wenatchee). Motter talked about his offseason work with Dante Bichette, gave an assessment of his struggles in 2017 and filled us in on the latest in his personal life with hair and engagement stories.

Aaron Goldsmith, who is also currently on Caravan duties, had a good talk with Marco Gonzales, who as a Gonzaga alum was a natural for the eastern Washington swing. Gonzales spoke in detail about the experience of coming back from Tommy John Surgery. Gonzales lives in Seattle year-round and has been training at Safeco Field this winter. He is very excited about the addition of Dr. Lorena Martin and shared a story of just how involved in the individual players health she already is.

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The second hour of the show featured a conversation with MLB.com writer Tracy Ringolsby, the 2005 winner of the the Taylor Spink Award, the highest award given by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Ringolsby voted for Edgar Martinez on his Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year, and he gave his opinion on why we are seeing very little movement on the free agent market and had some very different thoughts on the matter of whether or not this is a good thing for baseball than Boy Howdy and I had on the podcast last week. Ringolsby ended his interview with an incredible story about who he considered to be the most interesting player he ever covered.

The Hot Stove Show can be heard from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday nights on 710 ESPN Seattle between now and the start of Cactus League games.