Tim B.'s 2019 offseason plan

We all know this will look silly in just a few months, but that's no reason to stop me, so here goes!

I admire Jerry Dipoto and I am thrilled he was able to accomplish as much as he did in Year One of the soft rebuild. However, I do not believe him when he suggests that 2020 will be a year for the youngsters to develop in Seattle, and that this offseason will be quiet and relatively uneventful.

One reason why is that the fans will be rebellious if the payroll is in the bottom third of baseball. I expect the Mariners will boost payroll to at least $120 million, perhaps even $150 million, which will give Dipoto flexibility to make a number of interesting acquisitions in support of an organizational rebuild.

Although the organization could play all the young guys, I suspect instead that the organization will leave many top prospects in AA or AAA to start the season, and only a relatively small number will start on Opening Day. I predict that the composition of the team on Opening Day will be much different than the composition of the team on August 1, just as it was this year.

My guesses are as good as yours, but I will make a list of all the position players and starting pitchers and indicate my guess as to how likely they make the Opening Day roster.

But first, here is my list of players to be jettisoned:

Player – Likelihood of leaving the 40-man roster

Felix Hernandez – 100%
Keon Broxton – 100% (non-tender candidate)
Several relievers – 100% (I expect a reshuffling of the bullpen to make room for new acquisitions/promotions. Greg Johns suggested Chasen Bradford and Connor Sadzeck as two players who may not return with the club.)
Tim Beckham – 95% (non-tender candidate; he would block J.P. Crawford at SS)
Tommy Milone – 95% (free agent)
Arodys Vizcaino – 95% (free agent recovering from TJ surgery)
Wade LeBlanc – 75% (not valued at $5 million)
Ryon Healy – 65% (non-tender candidate with injury issues)
Omar Narvaez – 50% (trade candidate)
Austin Nola – 33% (trade candidate due to surplus of UT players, selling high)
Tim Lopes – 33% (trade candidate due to surplus of UT players)
Dylan Moore – 33% (trade candidate due to surplus of UT players)
Marco Gonzalez – 30% (trade candidate, whose value will decrease with time)
Tom Murphy – 25% (trade candidate)
Mallex Smith – 25% (trade candidate, but selling low after a down year)
Domingo Santana – 25% (possible non-tender candidate, or possible trade candidate, but selling low)
Mitch Haniger – 25% (trade candidate, whose value will decrease with time)
Kyle Seager – 20% (trade candidate, but he has a poison pill contract)
Dee Gordon – 10% (trade candidate, but he has little trade value following several bad seasons)

The Mariners will be stuck with two players they would rather remove from the roster in Dee Gordon and Domingo Santana. It would be difficult to move Dee Gordon without eating most of his contract, and since he has been playing injured and out of position, and has a history of being good, he might actually bounce back to a strong performance in 2020. I do not think the Mariners would forfeit even a 10% chance of a bounce back season because if he does enjoy success with another organization with the Mariners paying for his salary, that kind of $10+ million mistake can cost a GM his job. Domingo Santana will likely stay with the organization only because he has little trade value at the present time, but he has a likelier chance of bouncing back in 2020 to a good season, thereby improving his trade value.

The Mariners will almost certainly part with Felix Hernandez, Keon Broxton, several relievers, Tim Beckham, Tommy Milone, Wade LeBlanc, and Ryon Healy.

I believe the Mariners will shop Omar Narvaez and there’s a good chance the team will trade him. This would create an opening at C, but Tom Murphy would immediately be promoted to the position of #1 catcher and Austin Nola could start games too, which means the team would need only a relatively inexpensive backup catcher to fill the void left by Narvaez. If Narvaez isn’t traded, there’s a chance Murphy would be traded instead. A rebuilding team can’t afford the luxury of such a productive duo at the catcher position.

I anticipate the Mariners will shop one of their utility players (Nola, Lopes, Moore) as Donnie Walton will be arriving at some point. Furthermore, having three legitimate utility players on the 26-man roster is a luxury no rebuilding team can afford. A rebuilding team has an opportunity to play guys out of position and stretch them in ways a contending team cannot, which gives a team like the Mariners an opportunity to trade away an established bench player for an unproven prospect. Dylan Moore has added value in that he can play SS while Nola can (possibly) catch, but Lopes has seen very little big league action.

The Mariners may shop a number of other players, too, but they would never part with them unless the trade partner blows them away with an offer. Dipoto would be foolish to announce, "Player X must be traded!" as it would immediately destroy any leverage he might have in negotations. Fortunately, the Mariners are not really in any situation where they MUST move a player. They are halfway through their planned rebuild, and the benefit of trading away good players for prospects is not nearly as pronounced as it was last offseason, and on the flip side, those players are closer to the next window of contention than they were a year ago.

The Mariners have quite a few young prospects that they could ostensibly plug in to the 26-man roster on Opening Day, but I believe the Mariners will be more conservative than their public comments suggest, and they will be less likely to promote so soon, partly due to service time issues, but also due to the fact that the team ought to try to build a crescendo of talent that arrives at roughly the same time in order to maximize their chances at postseason play during their competitive window.

Here is my list of prospects (excluding relievers) and their chances of making the big league club on Opening Day:

OF Jake Fraley – 70%, although this is totally a guess. I think his performance in ST will dictate his chances.
2B Shed Long – 50%
SP Logan Gilbert – 10% (I would say 0% but Shannon Drayer reports otherwise)
OF Kyle Lewis – 10% (Shannon Drayer says he will have a chance to earn a spot)
SP Justin Dunn – 10% (He will almost certainly make the team for good at some point in 2020)
1B Evan White – 10%
SP Ricardo Sanchez 10%

My assessment flies in the face of public comments from Dipoto, and also contradicts the expectations of many Mariners fans, who want to see the young guys on the team as quickly as possible. I don’t. I want the team to develop the players and only promote them when they are ready (and in a handful of cases, when they won’t cost the team a year of control).

Jake Fraley will likely be given a real chance to make the team out of Spring Training. The other possibility is Shed Long, a player many observers consider a lock. If Dee Gordon is with the team (likely), I expect Gordon will be the starting 2B and Long will be stowed away in Tacoma for several months. Of course there is a chance Long will make the team anyway, but that would squeeze the bench. The other prospects have slim chances to make the team on Opening Day, and would likely only make the team in the event of an unanticipated vacancy such as an injury to the expected starter.

So who is left, and more importantly, how many vacancies will need to be filled?

STARTING PITCHERS:

1. Marco Gonzalez
2. Yusei Kikuchi
3. Justus Sheffield
4. VACANCY (possibly Erik Swanson, but he will likely be a reliever)
5. VACANCY

RELIEVERS

1-5. Existing players
6-8. VACANCY (filled internally or held for waiver/Rule 5/trade/FA acquisitions)

POSITION PLAYERS

C #1. Tom Murphy
1B. Daniel Vogelbach
2B. Dee Gordon
3B. Kyle Seager
SS. J.P. Crawford
LF. Jake Fraley (there’s a chance he doesn’t make the team)
CF. Mallex Smith
RF. Mitch Haniger
DH. Domingo Santana

BENCH

UT #1. (Tim Lopes, Dylan Moore, or Austin Nola)
UT #2. (Tim Lopes, Dylan Moore, or Austin Nola)
C #2. VACANCY
#4 OF. Braden Bishop (there’s a chance he doesn’t make the team)

Thus the Mariners will have room for two starting pitchers, 1-3 relievers, a backup catcher, and possibly an outfielder.

With starting pitching, Dunn will be called up midseason while Logan Gilbert may not even be in Seattle until September, and starting pitching is never a sure thing. So Dipoto ought to seek one mid-tier starting pitcher on a multi-year contract OR a back-end starting pitcher on a one year contract, and he should obtain another back-end starting pitcher on a one-year contract. Both players would need to come from either free agency or via trade, since major league starters are not available off waivers or the Rule 5 draft. The acquisitions could be in the form of free agents on pillow contracts (rare and unlikely), or perhaps bounce back candidates who could be traded by the deadline to make room for promotions.

I fully expect Dipoto to snag a reliever in the Rule 5 draft. He will snap up players off waivers, too. I doubt the team will invest in a free agent reliever unless one falls into their lap, cheaply, on a one-year contract.

The backup catcher would need to come cheap, so he would likely be an unproven commodity. The quality of the catcher would depend on whether Nola is traded: if Nola remains with the team, the Mariners can afford to take a risk on a lower-quality catching prospect. There is also the possibility that Dipoto takes on an old veteran catcher for this backup role, to better develop the pitching staff.

Depending on what the organization thinks of Fraley, they may or may not acquire another outfielder. Since so many outfielders are coming up through the system, I would imagine this player would be a cheap acquisition from free agency, someone to be flipped midseason if he has established any value.

The situation at 1B would be grim in the early part of the season. Obviously Vogelbach is not first base material, but someone needs to occupy the position until Evan White is ready. If Nola is with the team, he could see playing time at 1B too, although Vogelbach will play nearly every day at 1B or DH in order to boost his trade value. Similarly, Domingo Santana will play nearly every day (RF or DH) for the same reason. At least one of these two players--Domingo or Vogelbach--will be moved before the trade deadline.

This means Mitch Haniger would see some playing time in CF, although the bulk of his starts will be in RF.

Dee Gordon will be the starting second baseman, but this doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that he will hold the position until Shed Long returns to the team. (The stated reason for Shed Long to start in Tacoma will be "to maximize his playing time" or some such excuse.) At some point before the trade deadline, the Mariners will offload Gordon, whether he has established any trade value or not, conveniently after Shed has stayed down long enough to give the Mariners an extra year of club control.

The Mariners ought to get something of value for either Narvaez or Murphy, and they can expect a much lesser return for the departing utility infielder. Of course they will attempt to shop other players, but in a rebuilding year, the team can afford to take risks on players to bounce back from bad seasons whereas contending teams cannot afford to do this, which depresses the trade value of players such as Dee Gordon and Domingo Santana. Since they have diminished trade value, they probably will not be traded.

The Mariners need to acquire more player value than they expect to sell via trade, which means the team will need to spend money to fill all the vacancies. It doesn’t necessarily need to be money spent entirely in free agency. Sometimes another team 1) needs to reduce payroll, 2) they have an underwater contract for a player, and 3) they are willing to give up a prospect to go along with that player in the event Seattle is willing to take on the bulk of the player’s salary. Seattle thus acquires a placeholder player and a prospect. Dipoto will not publicly announce a desire to seek out deals like this since he would lose leverage in the negotiations, but I would not be surprised if he acquires a player or two in this manner.

The gap between the Mariners’ farm system and that of their rivals in the AL West is not all that significant. Meanwhile, most of those teams have more talent on their rosters (fewer holes to fill) and have a shorter hill to climb in terms of converting prospects into stars and building a winning ballclub. Therefore, the Mariners need to treat 2020 much as they did 2019. They need to be serious about acquiring talent. Even if everything goes right, they still have a long way to go to catch up with the best teams in the American League. In my opinion, 2020 will not be a year of transition, as many fans hope it will be. I think 2021 will be the year of transition, and the Mariners will seriously contend by 2022.

With that in mind, there is no need to rush prospects in 2020, especially considering that the big league team has had mixed results when it comes to developing players at the big league level.