It is what it is—another Mariners trade deadline
It is what it is—another Mariners trade deadline
These are our guys.
We should probably know better by now. Right? We should probably not be sweating trade deadline day every single year thinking this time, one time, out of nowhere, the Mariners are going to make that big move to push them over the top.
Why would we think that?
This is not gonna be some woe-is-us scribe on the organization never being ambitious enough, despite a hint of that on Wednesday.
I’ll be honest, my—our?—judgement on the necessity of the guy they just gotta go get isn’t always the best.
The first time I remember getting worked up and bummed out about the trade deadline, it was 2003 and the one who got away was Aaron Boone.
Those early-aughts Mariners didn’t stop being good until the following season—and at the deadline the M’s had the second-best record in the American League at 65-42. They led the Oakland Athletics for the American League West by four games.
As a kid, our family of seven would cram in a GMC Suburban twice a year to drive to our native La Crosse, Wisconsin and back. We were following the deadline by radio, hoping they’d get our guy. At least a guy.
The Mariners’ lone position player pickup that year was utility man Rey Sanchez. He posted a perfectly pre-Moneyball .294/.330/.335 line good for a 81 wRC+ in a Mariners uniforms, way up from the .207/.240/.236 and 21 wRC+ mark he had with the Mets.
Other names moved the at the deadline—besides Boone and Sanchez—include Aramis Ramírez, José Guillen, Raúl Mondesí, Shannon Stewart and Jeromy Burnitz.
Some may remember this one: Brian Giles was traded in a waiver move in late-August of his 146 wRC+, 4.6 fWAR campaign between Pittsburgh and San Diego.
Before this, right after the deadline, Mariners reliever Jeff Nelson had the quote below to say. You may have heard about this before but you gotta read it all because the time-is-a-flat-circleness to it is so thick you have to take a full whiff.
By way of David Andriesen of the Seattle PI:
"It's frustrating for everybody in here, and it should be frustrating for the people who go out there and pay for tickets and pay these outrageous prices at these concession stands," the veteran reliever said. "They deserve a winner. Seattle, I think the whole city is aching for a winner, either the Seahawks, the Sonics or the Mariners. We have an opportunity to do that, and it's just unfortunate we didn't make a move.
"We have a good team, and we're in first place by four games. You watch these other contending teams -- New York, Boston, Oakland, Chicago -- they're very good teams as well, but they want to be better. And they better themselves by going out and making these trades. It's tough to sit here year after year and watch this team not do things to better themselves.
"I've never seen an impact player come to this team (at the trade deadline), nor have they ever seemed to go out and try to get one. Every year it's, 'Oh, we tried to make moves, we tried to make moves,' but other teams seem to do it."
“They deserve a winner.”
“…but they want to be better.”
“‘Oh, we tried to make moves, we tried to make moves.’”
Jeff Nelson was traded to the Yankees a week later. The Mariners lost the West to the A’s by three games. They missed the playoffs entirely by two, finishing behind Boston for the only Wild Card.
Nellie would’ve loved the Randy Arozarena trade. Probably the Justin Turner one, too. Maybe especially Justin Turner. He wouldn’t have minded Yimi García and J.T. Chargois joining him out in the bullpen, either.
Compared to most of their peers this year, maybe even all of them, the Mariners had a great trade deadline. They got the best hitter moved. They didn’t part with any of their handful of top 100 prospects.
These are the situations in which you can’t help but defer to authority.
It’d be one thing if Luis Robert were traded to the Dodgers as they make another big move or we had to witness the horror of Yandy Díaz ending up in Houston. If Vlad went anywhere besides Seattle, it would’ve been crushing.
None of them went anywhere.
Still, this deadline made me think of that drive riding in the navy blue Suburban with my four siblings and mom and dad. I always think this is the year they make the big move late and have been doing it for most of my life now.
I’ll be honest, getting the “They’re done.” news a full 45 minutes before the official deadline had to be a new one. Credit to Adam Jude for reporting his ass off but, even with that tweet, I was still hoping for a pull-up three at the buzzer or after.
But no. Again, no.
The thing people struggle with, or more modestly, what I see differently than them—is that you can make good trades, even a collection of them to comprise what can be favorably described as a good trade deadline or offseason, but have it still not be enough as they should’ve done given the broader context.
Here’s how Jerry Dipoto described it, via Ryan Divish:
"In regards to the bats not really moving, that didn't surprise us much. That was kind of our expectation going in is that this might have been a little more smoke than fire in terms of the availability of some players in the market. And to no one's surprise, the biggest names that were being floated out there as potentially available, I'm not sure how available they ever really were. And to some end, the guys that were perhaps available, were available for a microsecond. So I'm not sure that it acutally ever felt like those were realistic targets for us. Until about a week ago, we didn't know if Randy Arozarena was going to be made available."
The Mariners responded by blasting the Red Sox on Tuesday night but faltering on Wednesday as the second-best bat they acquired—the oldest qualified hitter in the league—came up short in a couple big spots and the biggest offensive offseason addition, of this or any Dipoto winter, was close to tears in speaking to reporters postgame.
Like any team, the Mariners aren’t as good as their best nor as bad as their worst.
But if the middle-ground the end up in is territory somewhere short of the Postseason, I’ll wonder about those four words: “available for a microsecond.”
Wait who? For what?
Were the Mariners willing to move a top 100 guy? Or top 50? Maybe a couple for the right piece?
Maybe not, but it’s hard not to wonder, when nobody else in the league paid the price of a truly elite prospect or two—was it possible to put that on the line for a superstar and pole position for a division title?
The Mariners, with their own barefoot running brand of team-building, try to shoot a narrow gap relying exclusively on player development and trades for adding elite talent.
As I wrote in the offseason, sometimes not signing a free agent is just as risky as signing one—because Matt Chapman, with his 117 wRC+ and 3.2 fWAR, would be quite nice to have right now.
Maybe they still have enough, though. You can squint and see, perhaps, a lineup sufficiently competent to push the M’s past a Houston Astros organization that might just be dumb now.
Julio Rodríguez, CF
Randy Arozarena, RF
Cal Raleigh, C
Jorge Polanco, 2B
Justin Turner/Luke Raley, 1B
Victor Robles, LF
JT/Mitches/Vosler, DH
J.P. Crawford, SS
Josh Rojas/Dylan Moore, 3B
I wish they did more. That’s why I wrote all this. I don’t know that they could have done more, so I can’t with absolute certainty say they should’ve done more— at least not at the deadline alone. But I’m not sure they couldn’t have. I’d like to know.
Even if it doesn’t matter now.
We got 52 games to go. They’re a sloppy coin flip over who breaks at pool to make the playoffs.
There’s a lot of baseball left. Weighted by importance and salience and raw energy, you could say we have most of the baseball left. We’d like to see the M’s stretch that overall quantity, too.
I wrote this post to just say “Hey, if you’re bummed the Mariners didn’t do more I’m right there with you.” Even if we don’t know the finer details. And also to say, hey, it’s summer in Seattle and we have a lot of ballgames left. Some good ones.
It starts tonight against the Philadelphia Phillies. Fun team. Good weather.
It’s the stakes that make it special, though. This is the good stuff.
We’ll have a handful of heroes between here and October. Villains and scapegoats, too. I say it every post now but we’ll declare this team dead at least a few more times now before they actually are.
I wish they had Vlad and were gunning for it all this year and next, for sure. For once. Cost be damned.
What we have though is still going to be fun. It will still be a lot.
We don’t have to do transaction stuff for a bit. These are the guys, these are the 2024 Mariners, from now ‘til infinity.
Unless it finishes with a parade, I’ll always wish they could’ve done more to give these guys a shot.
It could still finish with a parade, though.
Go M’s.