Mariners Rumors

AL Draft Notes: Mariners, Yankees, Rays

By George Miller | June 6, 2020 at 5:29pm CDT

With this year’s iteration of the MLB Draft, which will begin on Wednesday, comprising just five rounds instead of the usual 40, there’s some thinking that teams will prioritize college players, about whom more is known and who tend to come with more certainty. And while we won’t know for certain until it all plays out next week, here’s the latest on several AL teams’ thinking as the truncated draft approaches.

The Mariners are said to be once again targeting collegiate pitchers, writes Greg Johns of MLB.com. Jerry Dipoto’s club holds the sixth overall selection, and has six total picks in the draft. They’ve been linked to the likes of Emerson Hancock, and to a lesser degree Max Meyer and Reid Detmers—all college hurlers. But if infielder Nick Gonzales, widely regarded as one of the premier talents in this year’s draft class, falls out of the top five, Dipoto may deviate from that preference and nab the New Mexico State product. If the M’s do indeed opt for a college pitcher in round one, it would represent a continuation of the strategy the Seattle front office has employed in the previous two drafts: in 2018, the Mariners chose Stetson’s Logan Gilbert at no. 14; last year, they grabbed George Kirby of Elon at no. 20.
Bryan Hoch of MLB.com is hearing that the Yankees could go after a position player with their first pick and pitchers in the later rounds. Due to the Gerrit Cole signing, the Bronx Bombers forfeited their second- and fifth-round selections, meaning that they’ll only make three selections on draft day. Per Hoch, they’ve been connected to shortstops Nick Loftin, Ed Howard, and Carson Tucker as candidates for the 28th-overall draft choice. Loftin is a Baylor product, while Howard and Tucker both come from the high school ranks. In Anthony Volpe and Anthony Seigler, Brian Cashman and company have targeted high school position players in the first round of consecutive drafts.
The Rays have been one of the better (or perhaps, luckier) teams when it comes to finding Major League talent in the late rounds of the draft, but of course they won’t have much opportunity to continue that trend this year, given that they’ll only have five rounds (six selections) to add talent to their already-loaded farm system. As Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes, the consequences of the shortened format might be magnified for the tight-budget Rays, who are especially dependent on the draft—even the later rounds—for rounding out the organization. One example of that is 31st-round selection Kevin Kiermaier, whom MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk covered earlier today. All that said, Topkin believes the Rays likely won’t alter their philosophy of hunting for the players with the best overall chance of impacting the MLB club, with little regard for position or age.

Mariners Release Manny Banuelos

By Connor Byrne | June 1, 2020 at 4:13pm CDT

The Mariners recently released left-hander Manny Banuelos, according to the Pacific Coast League transactions page. Banuelos only spent a few months with the Mariners, who signed him to a minors pact near the beginning of February.

Now 29 years old, Banuelos ranked as one of the sport’s premier pitching prospects while part of the Yankees’ farm system. Banuelos topped out as Baseball America’s 29th-best farmhand in 2012, though injuries – including Tommy John surgery – have played a part in preventing him from realizing his potential.

Although his career hasn’t turned out as hoped so far, Banuelos is at least coming off a year in which he racked up a solid amount of innings as a member of the White Sox. He totaled 50 2/3 frames over 16 appearances (eight starts), though Banuelos could only notch a 6.93 ERA/6.57 FIP with 7.82 K/9 and 5.86 BB/9. It was his first major league action since a 26 1/3-inning run with the Braves in 2015, when he pitched to a 5.13 ERA. But Banuelos has been far better in Triple-A, as his 3.98 ERA with 8.4 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 over 396 frames demonstrates.

Three Teams Played Musical Chairs With First Basemen…And Five Teams Came Away Winners

By TC Zencka | May 30, 2020 at 10:57am CDT

Last week, I looked at Cole Sulser’s prospects of making an impact in the Baltimore Orioles bullpen. Sulser found his way to Baltimore via Tampa Bay after being included in a three-way swap of more prominent players. Today, let’s take a look at those players.

To review: in December of 2018, the Indians, Mariners, and Rays engaged in a three-way deal that shuffled around their first basemen. In this rare three-way challenge trade, each team came away with (at least one) major-league first baseman. The Rays got Yandy Diaz, the Mariners Edwin Encarnacion, while the Indians snagged a pair of first basemen in the deal: Jake Bauers and Carlos Santana.

There were auxiliary pieces that fit less cleanly into our first basemen carousel. The Rays picked up Sulser from Cleveland, while Tampa also sent $5MM to the Mariners. Seattle paid that money forward, sending a total of $6MM to the Indians. Coming back to Seattle was the Indians’ Round B selection in the draft. The Mariners ended up selecting right-handed pitcher Isaiah Campbell out of Arkansas with the #76 pick in the draft. Those pieces aside, let’s check in on how each team is feeling about their end of this whirlwind deal one season after the fact.

Indians

This move – and much of their offseason last winter – was largely about shuffling money around – but not wholly so. The Indians took back Santana, who had only recently been sent to Seattle after playing one season in Philadelphia. Santana made $20.3MM in 2019, but his contract was offset by sending out Encarnacion, who was owed $21.7MM in 2019 with a $5MM buyout for 2020. The difference in their salaries, plus the money acquired from Seattle netted the Indians close to $7.5MM in 2019, though they took on more long-term money in Santana.

On the field, this deal basically amounts to two exchanges for the Indians: Santana over Encarnacion in terms of big-money players, and Bauers over Diaz for cost-controlled assets. As for the first exchange, the Indians have to count this as a win. After one so-so year with the Phillies, Santana returned to form in a big way with the Indians. All aspects of Santana’s game came together in 2019. He hit .281/.397/.515 on the year with 34 home runs and 110 RBIs. He turned in his typically strong BB-K numbers, posting identical walk and strikeout rates of 15.7% (slight improvements on his career norms in both departments). His isolated power (.234 ISO) was the second-highest mark of his career, while the .397 OBP was a new career-high for a full season. Santana’s season totaled 4.6rWAR/4.4 fWAR, good for 135 wRC+, and he’ll be back in their lineup for 2020.

Bauers, on the other hand, is a work in progress. He brings an added level of versatility, appearing in 31 games at first and 53 games in left, but he’ll need to improve at the plate to put that value to work. Bauers hit just .226/.312/.371 across 423 plate appearances in his first season with the Indians. His walk rate dropped to 10.6% and with a power mark of just .145 ISO. That’s not enough pop from a first baseman/left fielder. He finished with below-average marks of 78 wRC+ and -0.4 fWAR. Still, all hope is not lost for Bauers. A career-low .290 BABIP might point to some positive regression in the future, and he doesn’t even turn 25-years-old until October.

Mariners

The Mariners’ biggest get here was the draft pick. GM Jerry Dipoto continued his rebuild, and ultimately, the swap of sluggers was an avenue to add another draft pick. After taking on Santana a week prior, the Mariners shed long-term money by swapping in Encarnacion, whom they eventually flipped to the Yankees.

While with the Mariners, Encarnacion was about as good as expected, slashing .241/.356/.531 with 21 home runs in 65 games. With the rebuild in full swing, EE was never expected to spend a full season in Seattle. Given his start to the year, the Mariners’ return for the DH was a little underwhelming, but the market for teams in need of a designated hitter was limited. Still, Trader Jerry added right-hander Juan Then from the Yankees. Fangraphs ranks Then as the Mariners’ #13-ranked prospect after finishing the season in A-ball. Campbell, selected with the acquired draft choice, comes in at #16.

The Yankees and Mariners essentially split the remaining money owed Encarnacion at the time, so the M’s did see some financial benefit as well. It’s often difficult to track the wheeling and dealing done by Dipoto, but we can give it a go here. To do so, we have to go back to the deal that sent Santana from the Phillies to Seattle. Dipoto sent Jean Segura, Juan Nicasio, and James Pazos to Philly for Santana and J.P. Crawford. In sum, he started with Segura, Nicasio, and Pazos, and the Mariners ended up with Crawford, Then, and Campbell, along with some financial saving both in the short-and-long-term.

Rays

It was surprising to see the Rays move Jake Bauers at the time of this deal, but they’re no stranger to dealing from a young core. The Rays picked up Sulser and Diaz for Bauers in this trade, while also sending $5MM to the Mariners. Considering Sulser was eventually lost on waivers to the Orioles (though he did give them 7 scoreless innings in 2019), the move essentially amounts to the Rays paying $5MM to swap in Diaz for Bauers. At the time of the deal, Bauers was seen as an up-and-comer, while Diaz was a little-known 27-year-old utility player with little-to-no boom in his boomstick. As has often been the case of late with Rays’ trades, at a cursory glance, the Rays were trading away controllable youth for a role player.

But where the Rays are concerned, it’s often worth delving a little further. Diaz quickly became known for his above-average exit velocities. And while Diaz was a little older and without the prospect pedigree of Bauers, he came with similar team control, more versatility given his ability to line up at the hot corner, and his biceps have a cult following all their own.

Injuries unfortunately limited Diaz’s production in 2019, but when he was on the field, he was dynamite. While posting a line of .267/.340/.476 across 79 games, Diaz was coming into his own as a hitter with a 116 wRC+. Diaz’s minor league career to this point was a testament to his ability to get on base, limit strikeouts, and make hard contact, but a groundball-heavy approach limited his power.

But it was a different story in Tampa. Diaz produced a career-best .208 ISO to go with a 91.7 mph exit velocity that put him in the top 8% of the league, per Statcast. His hard-hit percentage continues to be well above average, and a small improvement in launch angle and a large jump in barrels led to Diaz smashing 14 home runs in 79 games after hitting just 1 in 88 big league games with the Indians.

Not only that, but Diaz returned from the injured list in time for the playoffs, leading off the wild card game with a solo shot off Sean Manaea. Diaz went deep his second time up as well, at which point the Rays had more than enough to get past the A’s. It was a monster performance from Diaz in the biggest game of the year up to that point. (Things didn’t go quite so well for Diaz in Houston, as he went 0 for 9 with four strikeouts in the ALDS.) The Rays have to feel pretty good about where they stand with Diaz moving forward, as he should continue to be a cheap source of offense for the next couple of seasons.

For that matter, all three teams have to feel pretty good about this deal, as they each accomplished their goal. If Bauers has a better showing in 2020 and the Mariners’ prospects come to fruition, there will ultimately be very little not to like about this three-way deal. Include the Orioles for nabbing Sulser and the Yankees for getting a half a season of Encarnacion, and it could be argued that five teams actually came away winners from this three-way swap of first baseman.

Mariners Release More Than 50 Minor Leaguers

By Steve Adams | May 29, 2020 at 8:20am CDT

May 29: Heyman now tweets that Gonzalez is not among the Mariners players who have been released. The Score’s Robert Murray adds, though, that the Seattle organization has released more than 50 minor league players.

May 28: The Mariners have released veteran outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets. As a reminder, Major League transactions are still frozen, although we recently verified that minor league cuts are still permissible. Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times had previously reported that the Mariners were releasing more than 30 minor league players. Divish adds that minor leaguers who remain with the Mariners will continue to receive the current $400 weekly stipend through the end of the 2020 season. Teams had previously only agreed to pay minor leaguers through May, and some have already cut their pay entirely or extended the stipend but only through the end of June.

Teams didn’t make many of their usual cuts late in Spring Training, so several of today’s releases might’ve already been cut lose already under normal circumstances anyhow. That’s certainly the case for the veteran Gonzalez, who was unlikely to make the club and had an April 1 opt-out date in his minor league deal. As Divish further points out, large-scale minor league releases are common prior to the amateur draft. This year’s five-round draft is vastly shorter than a standard 40-round draft, but other clubs (Orioles, White Sox) have begun to make similar waves of releases. With minor league contraction potentially on the horizon and uncertainty surrounding a minor league season being played at all in 2020, additional cuts seem likely throughout the league.

Turning to Gonzalez, the lone name known at this point, he was always a bit of a tough fit on a rebuilding Mariners club that was trying to give as many plate appearances as possible to young talent. Back in Spring Training, Divish suggested that the CarGo signing was something of a courtesy to a respected veteran — offering him a chance to pick up some spring at-bats. Surely in the event of multiple injuries, the depth would’ve become more useful for the M’s, but the April 1 opt-out in his deal was present to allow him to seek other opportunities if and when he found himself a ways down the depth chart.

Gonzalez, 34, went 6-for-22 with a double, three walks and five strikeouts in 25 spring plate appearances with Seattle. The three-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger is coming off a brutal season split between the Indians and the Cubs — one in which he mustered only a .200/.289/.283 batting line in 166 plate appearances. He posted a respectable .276/.329/.467 slash (99 OPS+, 97 wRC+) with the Rockies a year prior, but CarGo hasn’t been a decidedly above-average hitter since 2016, when he batted .298/.350/.505 with Colorado.

While he’s no longer in the prime of his career, Gonzalez isn’t so far past that point that a resurgence is unforeseeable. And with the likely advent of the universal designated hitter for at least the 2020 season, perhaps some NL clubs with lackluster options will have interest in taking a flier on a player who batted .296/.353/.535 with an average of 26 homers per season during his peak from 2010-16.

Denard Span On His Future

By Steve Adams | May 25, 2020 at 2:08pm CDT

It’s been nearly 20 months since Denard Span suited up in a big league game, and the former Twins, Nationals, Giants, Rays and Mariners outfielder suggests in an interview with Patrick Reusse of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he may not do so again. Span reveals that he received offers in the 2018-19 offseason, although they clearly weren’t compelling enough to leave his young family. Span adds that he worked out this winter with an eye toward a 2020 return and received “two or three” minor league offers — but they came from clubs without much of a path to the Majors even in the event that he played well in Triple-A.

“I haven’t announced it, officially, but maybe this is it,” Span said when asked about retirement. “…I still would have the ability to help a team. But 36-year-old outfielders who haven’t played in two years … not happening. I’m very satisfied pouring my life into our family, to Anne, a wonderful person, and our two boys.”

If this is indeed it for the amiable Span, it’s been quite a strong career. A first-round pick out of high school by the Twins back in 2002, Span took nearly six years to ascend to the big leagues, but he made an immediate impact upon arrival. Twenty-four years old at the time, Span finished sixth in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2008 and hit .294/.387/.432 (122 OPS+ and wRC+ alike) through 487 plate appearances, helping push the Twins to a dramatic Game 163 showdown with the White Sox. Minnesota fell in a crushing 1-0 loss to the South Siders, but Span had announced his presence in the big leagues and would never look back.

Over the next four seasons, Span was the consummate leadoff man in Minnesota, hitting a combined .283/.351/.381 with a nine percent walk rate and just an 11.5 percent strikeout rate. In addition to a knack for working counts and putting the ball in play, Span showed off well above-average baserunning skills and the ability to play plus defense wherever he was slotted into the outfield (center field, more often than not). Heading into the 2010 campaign, Span signed a five-year, $16.5MM contract extension that contained an option for an additional $9MM.

Span provided excellent value over the course of that contract, but he only spent half of it in a Twins uniform. As the Twins fell from their status as a perennial AL Central contender and moved into a rebuild, Span had two guaranteed years and the club option remaining on that highly appealing deal. Minnesota flipped him to the Nationals in a straight-up swap for then-vaunted pitching prospect Alex Meyer — a deal that proved regrettable for Minnesota after repeated shoulder injuries torpedoed Meyer’s career.

The Nats had no complaints, though, and that may have been the case even if Meyer had eventually developed into a quality big leaguer. Span hit .292/.345/.404 in three seasons with Washington, continuing to add value on the bases and in the field along the way. By the time he reached free agency, Span was solidified enough to command a three-year, $31MM contract from the Giants. Even as his glovework deteriorated — San Francisco didn’t help matters by continuing to play him in center for lack of a better option — Span remained solid at the plate. However, he played out the final year of that deal between his hometown Rays and the Mariners after the Giants sent him to Tampa Bay in the Evan Longoria trade.

All told, Span has logged 11 seasons in the Major Leagues and batted a combined .281/.347/.398 with 71 home runs, 265 doubles, 72 triples, 185 stolen bases (in 244 tries — 76 percent), 773 runs scored and 490 RBIs. He was never an All-Star despite a strong career that checked in at 28 wins above replacement per both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference — a likely result of the understated manner in which he brought value to his teams (on-base percentage, baserunning, defense).

Clubs clearly saw the value in Span, though, as he was a regular from the moment he debuted up through the end of the 2018 season, and he inked a pair of multi-year deals that helped propel his career earnings north of $58MM (including his draft bonus). Best wishes to Span moving forward, whatever the future holds.

The Mariners’ Future Payroll Promises

By Jeff Todd | May 22, 2020 at 3:13pm CDT

2020 salary terms are set to be hammered out in the coming days. But what about what’s owed to players beyond that point? The near-term economic picture remains questionable at best. That’ll make teams all the more cautious with guaranteed future salaries.

Every organization has some amount of future cash committed to players, all of it done before the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe. There are several different ways to look at salaries; for instance, for purposes of calculating the luxury tax, the average annual value is the touchstone, with up-front bonuses spread over the life of the deal. For this exercise, we’ll focus on actual cash outlays that still have yet to be paid.

We’ll run through every team, with a big assist from the Cot’s Baseball Contracts database. Next up is the Mariners:

(click to expand/view detail list)

Mariners Total Future Cash Obligation: $115.45MM

*includes Yusei Kikuchi 2022 player option

*includes buyouts of club options

Which 15 Players Should The Mariners Protect In An Expansion Draft?

By Tim Dierkes | May 21, 2020 at 10:22am CDT

In a few weeks, we’ll be running a two-team mock expansion draft here at MLBTR. Currently, we’re creating 15-player protected lists for each of the existing 30 teams. You can catch up on the rules for player eligibility here.

So far, we’ve done the Athletics, Angels, Astros, Twins, Royals, Tigers, Indians, White Sox, Rays, Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Orioles. The Mariners are next.

First, we’ll remove free agents Dee Gordon, Taijuan Walker, and Yoshihisa Hirano from consideration. I’ve decided to lock down these 11 players out of the gate:

Mitch Haniger
Marco Gonzales
Evan White
Logan Gilbert
Justus Sheffield
Justin Dunn
Kyle Lewis
J.P. Crawford
Shed Long
Jake Fraley
Tom Murphy

That leaves four spots for the following 25 players:

Austin Adams
Dan Altavilla
Gerson Bautista
Braden Bishop
Brandon Brennan
Nestor Cortes
Carl Edwards Jr.
Kendall Graveman
Zac Grotz
Taylor Guilbeau
Sam Haggerty
Yusei Kikuchi
Tim Lopes
Matt Magill
Nick Margevicius
Dylan Moore
Austin Nola
Kyle Seager
Mallex Smith
Erik Swanson
Daniel Vogelbach
Donovan Walton
Art Warren
Taylor Williams
Patrick Wisdom

With that, we turn it over to the MLBTR readership! In the poll below (direct link here), select exactly four players you think the Mariners should protect in our upcoming mock expansion draft. Click here to view the results.

Create your own user feedback survey

How Seattle Acquired One Of Its Best Players

By Connor Byrne | May 21, 2020 at 2:00am CDT

While last season was an injury-shortened wreck for the Mariners’ Mitch Haniger, you can’t dispute that he’s a highly valuable outfielder when he’s able to take the field. Haniger came into his own during his first extensive action in 2017, and he was a deserving All-Star during the next season, in which he hit .285/.366/.493 (137 wRC+) with 26 home runs and 4.5 fWAR. With three years of control left, Haniger could either continue to serve as a key Mariner or re-emerge as a desirable trade chip, leaving the M’s in a good spot in both cases.

As for how Haniger became a Mariner, we can start by revisiting the 2011-12 offseason. Prolific slugger Prince Fielder, a Brewer from 2005-11, reached the open market after the last of those seasons. He was a Type A free agent, which is a concept that’s now extinct in the majors, but losing Fielder entitled the Brewers to a compensatory pick in the 2012 draft. They did indeed see Fielder depart, as he went to the Tigers on a nine-year, $214MM contract. That left the Brewers with the 38th overall pick, which they used on Haniger.

While Haniger was a decent minor league hitter at the lower levels in the Milwaukee organization, he never played in the majors with the Brewers. They instead traded Haniger and left-hander Anthony Banda (now a Ray) to the Diamondbacks at the July 2014 deadline for outfielder Gerardo Parra. The Brewers didn’t make the playoffs that year or the next one – Parra was on their roster both seasons – and they traded him to the Orioles for righty Zach Davies at the 2015 deadline. Davies was effective as a Brewer from 2015-19, though they dealt him to the Padres in a four-player swap that delivered infielder Luis Urias and lefty Eric Lauer to Milwaukee over the offseason.

So, in the wake of the Parra trade, how did Haniger end up in Seattle? Let’s go back to November 2016, when the D-backs sent him, infielder Jean Segura and righty Zac Curtis to the Mariners in a blockbuster trade for infielder/outfielder Ketel Marte and righty Taijuan Walker. Segura’s now a member of the Phillies, who acquired him from the M’s in a December 2018 that brought shortstop J.P. Crawford and some guy named Carlos Santana to Seattle (though Santana never played for the club). Marte has turned into a superstar in Arizona, meanwhile, Walker’s now back in Seattle after a couple injury-ruined years in the desert, and Curtis is out of baseball.

This goes to show how much one team’s decision – in this case, the Brewers letting Fielder go in free agency – can affect the league. Had the Brewers simply re-signed Fielder, which was out of the question for the low-budget team, you never know what would have happened to any of the aforementioned clubs or players. Milwaukee’s inability to keep Fielder did lead Haniger to Seattle, which is no doubt pleased to have him in the fold for at least the next few seasons, but it did lose Marte when it acquired him.

Remembering A Dodgers Heist

By Connor Byrne | May 20, 2020 at 1:05am CDT

As a versatile defender and a capable offensive player, Chris Taylor has been one of many eminently useful members of the Dodgers’ roster since 2017. But Taylor’s career did not begin in ideal fashion. A fifth-round pick of the Mariners in 2012, Taylor peaked as Baseball America’s ninth-ranked M’s prospect in 2014, and though he reached the majors for the first time that year, it took him a few years to come into his own.

Taylor showed off almost zero pop early in his big league career, evidenced by his one home run and .076 isolated power number across 318 plate appearances through 2016. Taylor had plenty of high moments in the Mariners’ minor league system, where he hit .314/.401/.455 in 1,856 PA, but could only muster a measly line of .240/296/.296 (71 wRC+) in the majors. Consequently, general manager Jerry Dipoto – who did not draft Taylor – gave him up in June 2016, sending him to the Dodgers for right-hander Zach Lee.

At the time of the Seattle-LA deal, MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk wrote, “Given Taylor’s impressive minor league numbers, it’s not out of the question that he could unlock some of that hitting prowess in the bigs.”

Mark couldn’t have been more right. Taylor saw little time with the Dodgers in his first year with the organization (just 62 PA), but he became a regular for the club the next season and has been an integral part of the perennial contenders’ roster since then. Going back to 2017, Taylor has slashed .268/.340/.468 (116 wRC+) with 50 homers and 9.6 fWAR, all while making relatively minimal salaries. Taylor’s still under affordable control through 2021, so as someone who can hit and play just about every position (he has lined up at second, third, short and all three outfield spots in LA), it should be a no-brainer for the Dodgers to keep him in the fold for at least the next couple years.

While the Dodgers struck gold on Taylor, the Mariners got nothing out of this swap. Lee entered the pro ranks as the 28th overall pick of the Dodgers in 2010, deciding to try for a baseball career instead of playing football at LSU. Signing the former quarterback cost the Dodgers a franchise-record bonus of $5.25MM, and Lee lived up to the hype for a little while. He was among Baseball America’s top 100 prospects three times (2011, ’12 and ’14), but Lee had an up-and-down minor league run as a Dodger and made just one appearance with the big club. In a 15-2 loss to the Mets in July 2015, Lee yielded seven earned runs on 11 hits in 4 2/3 innings. That was the only time he took the mound as a Dodger.

So what has become of Lee since the Mariners acquired him? Well, he had a fleeting run in the Seattle org, which lost him on waivers to San Diego in December 2016. Lee has since been with three other franchises – the Rays, Mets and Athletics (the A’s signed him to a minors pact this past offseason). He’s still just 28, and as a former high-end prospect, it may be too soon to give up on Lee. However, as the owner of a 5.41 ERA over 625 1/3 innings in Triple-A ball, it seems unlikely he’ll amount to much in the majors. Considering how Lee’s pro career has gone thus far, the Dodgers have to be thrilled with the return they got for him.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

An Unpopular Trade Paying Off In Seattle

By Steve Adams | May 19, 2020 at 7:45pm CDT

The Mariners’ rebuild began in earnest following a disappointing finish to the 2018 season, when GM Jerry Dipoto first began talk of re-imagining his roster. The M’s have added a bevy of prospects since that time, highlighted by Jarred Kelenic and Justus Sheffield, but one of their most important long-term pieces was acquired on July 21 in 2017, when the club was still aiming for immediate contention.

That day saw Seattle trade slugging minor league outfielder Tyler O’Neill to the Cardinals in exchange for left-hander Marco Gonzales. The now-28-year-old Gonzales has become a fixture in the rotation, but the trade wasn’t exactly well-received among M’s fans at the time. The club was below .500 but just 1.5 games back from a Wild Card spot at the time of the swap. Dipoto had been trying to acquire young pitching, hoping to add to his core while also remaining competitive in a top-heavy American League. (The 85-win Twins claimed the league’s second Wild Card position that year.)

The consensus among Mariners fans at the time of the swap was, essentially, “Why would they do this?” Social media reactions to the deal weren’t favorable, and looking through the comments on the trade’s writeup at MLBTR, FanGraphs or most other sites reveals a similarly perplexed set of replies. O’Neill had entered that year as one of the game’s 100 best prospects and the second-best in the Mariners organization, while Gonzales had made just one appearance in the Majors since returning from 2016 Tommy John surgery. He was having a nice season in Triple-A, but most scouting reports on him pegged Gonzales as a mid-rotation arm, at best. In addition to that Tommy John surgery, he battled shoulder troubles in 2015.

Injury risk or not, Dipoto was undeterred. The Mariners’ GM spoke the day before the trade about only being willing to deal from his premium prospects if it meant acquiring a long-term rotation piece, and days after the swap he called Gonzales “about as big-league-ready as a Triple-A pitcher could be.” Sure enough, Gonzales was in the big leagues less than three weeks later.

The initial results did little to assuage the concerns of Seattle fans. Gonzales pitched just 36 2/3 innings of 5.40 ERA ball down the stretch as the Mariners again fell shy of the postseason. O’Neill hit .253/.304/.548 with a dozen homers in 37 Triple-A games following the trade that year. On-base questions notwithstanding, the power was still impressive and Mariners fans were skeptical of the lefty for whom O’Neill had been shipped out.

Despite that lackluster showing, Gonzales opened the 2018 season in the Seattle starting five. His early work didn’t inspire much confidence, but after four shaky starts, Gonzales settled into a groove and pitched to a 3.60 ERA over his final 150 innings, averaging 7.6 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 along the way. In 2019, Gonzales posted a 3.99 ERA that was nearly identical to his 4.00 ERA from 2018 — but he did it in a larger sample of 203 frames.

Setting aside his rocky debut in 2018, Gonzales has given the Mariners 369 2/3 frames of 3.99 ERA ball with an even better 3.83 FIP, 7.1 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, 0.97 HR/9 and a 42.5 percent ground-ball rate. From 2018-19, he was worth 6.0 bWAR and 7.1 fWAR. The rebuilding Mariners made clear that they view Gonzales as a core piece back in February, signing the southpaw to a four-year, $30MM contract extension (2021-24) that also contains a $15MM club option for the 2025 season.

The trade would likely look like a solid one for the Mariners even if O’Neill had blossomed into an everyday corner outfielder. That hasn’t happened yet, however. While Gonzales was solidifying himself in the Mariners’ rotation, O’Neill was bouncing back and forth between Triple-A and St. Louis, hitting a combined .258/.307/.454 with 14 home runs in 293 plate appearances. The power has been good but not elite, and O’Neill’s contact struggles have indeed been magnified against MLB pitching; he’s punched out 110 times in those 293 plate appearances (37.5 percent).

To be fair to O’Neill, he hasn’t exactly been given a real opportunity to win an everyday job. Just months after he was traded to St. Louis, the Cardinals went out and acquired two years of control over Marcell Ozuna in a trade that sent Sandy Alcantara, Zac Gallen and Magneuris Sierra to the Marlins. With Ozuna, Dexter Fowler, Tommy Pham (in 2018) and Harrison Bader all logging considerable time in the St. Louis outfield, opportunities for O’Neill have been sparse. But the very fact that the Cards felt it necessary to pursue a Giancarlo Stanton acquisition and then pull off a deal for Ozuna speaks to some level of question in O’Neill’s readiness.

The Cards didn’t add a left fielder to replace the departing Ozuna this winter, but they also have uber-prospect Dylan Carlson nearing the Majors. Even if Carlson seizes an outfield spot, the likely implementation of the universal DH will give O’Neill some additional opportunities to get into the lineup, so perhaps he’ll finally get the chance to justify the deal from the St. Louis end. The Cards haven’t exactly been hurting for pitching even without Gonzales in the fold, but there’s no denying he’s been the more valuable piece of the straight-up swap to this point.

The Gonzales/O’Neill trade won’t be looked back upon as any time of blockbuster, but it offers some reminders when judging future trades:

Prospect rankings are useful and entertaining, but it’s easy to overemphasize them. Prospect values are in a constant state of flux. Even a few weeks and certainly a couple months can change the opinion on a prospect. Whether it’s adding a new pitch, adding/losing velocity, outgrowing a position, altering mechanics at the plate or any number of other changes a player can exhibit, a prospect’s value can alter in a hurry.
It’s too easy to write off post-hype prospects. Gonzales himself was a first-round pick and top-100 prospect prior to injury troubles. At the time of the O’Neill trade, he was less than two years removed from ranking as the game’s No. 50 prospect, per Baseball America. A recent top prospect with some big league experience and four to five years of control is generally still a valuable piece even if he’s not a star. MLBTR’s Connor Byrne recently looked at another player fitting this mold: Pittsburgh’s Joe Musgrove.
Position scarcity matters. We’ve seen corner outfielders and first baseman go for smaller returns on the trade market and in free agency in recent seasons. Part of the Mariners’ calculus was surely that a corner outfielder with some on-base questions was easier to come by than an affordable mid-rotation starter, even if the latter carried considerably more risk.

In some regards, the end result of this trade is common. “Team gets one of its best pitchers by trading away key prospect” is hardly a unique storyline in baseball, but the manner in which the Mariners went about this particular instance of that narrative isn’t typical. The result speaks for itself right now, though. And while O’Neill can still change how we look at the deal in the long run, it’s worked out about as well as the Mariners could’ve hoped.

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