Why the Mariners offensive struggles are a reason they *must* add big this trade deadline, not a deterrent

Don’t fear losing the farm, fear going hungry.

This weekend, the Seattle Mariners stumbled out of the gate in an incredibly important series with the Houston Astros, but by salvaging their Sunday tilt they remain tied for 1st place in the AL West, as well as ahead 6-4 on the season against Houston. The penultimate series of the season for the M’s is in Houston, the only remaining three games they’ll play, meaning to win the division they must at least outperform Houston by one game the rest of the season, or win the season series while matching their pace. While they’ve floundered offensively all year, in the next two weeks, they’ll have their final significant opportunity to improve the 2024 team, with the trade deadline looming at the beginning of August. They cannot squander such an opportunity. Go. Get. Luis. Robert. Jr., or Vladimir Guerrero Jr., or Isaac Paredes, even Brent Rooker, get several, get bold.

I’ve seen the cases against Seattle making a splash. Some do not pass muster at all. This is a team in 1st place ahead of the deadline, with the best shot at the division they’ve had at this time in the season in over two decades. Can they hit? No, not in the sense that they make contact more than any other team in MLB history, nor that they score more runs than anyone except the putrid Miami Marlins and the genuinely unconscionable Chicago White Sox. So they stink at hitting, problem is everyone stinks at hitting them worse. They’re not outperforming their peripherals in some wild way, they’re just a brilliant pitching club that isn’t hitting. They’ve played more 1-run games than all but two teams (the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs), and while they’re 19-14 in those games, they’ve let plenty of close tilts slip away with one or two baserunners as the difference.

All the more reason to add! It would be one thing if Seattle were vacillating between blowout wins and losses, with a rotation as uneven as their 2014-2018 clubs. Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller are no Yovani Gallardo or Sam Gaviglio. Game after game, Seattle’s rotation and bullpen are keeping the M’s in striking distance, where 1-2 more runs would be all the difference needed, not a complete overhaul of 6-7 hitters. At the risk of being needlessly granular, if Ty France and Vladito were to get 300 more plate appearances this year (an approximate pace for the rest of the season) performing at their current paces, Vladdy would get on base 15 more times than France. That of course undersells it, given Guerrero’s significantly greater power numbers and track record, even if he’s home at T-Mobile Park. How often has one extra baserunner been the difference for the M’s this year? Much less if that’s a double? A homer? It’s a bit remedial to say the reason why teams should acquire better players is because they’ll perform better and win more, but it could not be more demonstrable than on a team dancing on the razor’s edge of excellence as Seattle is. Improving the odds of their performance is fundamentally worthwhile when they are grasping the title themselves.

It’s frustrating knowing Seattle should’ve done this work in the offseason, and that their deck chair shuffle left them in little better position than they were before, making some high-risk moves I liked at the time on balance but that simply have not hit (literally). This M’s club is fundamentally performing worse than the 2022 and 2023 varieties, yet the rest of the division’s collapse renders it moot. I would not encourage the M’s to pursue pure rental options primarily, given the mediocrity of the division this year, however going for multi-year players can give them upgrades that bolster them in the present and over the longer term.

Those moves, however, come with a cost, and this is where I have some sympathy for the Pat Standers. The quality of Seattle’s prospects is such that a trade moving many of them would hamper a future M’s club from an even brighter future.

This case, outlined by many, represented by Alex Jensen of Prospects Live’s reasonable response to Jerry Dipoto’s Wednesday morning breakfast of word salad, is not one I agree with, but I can understand. Seattle’s farm system was recently updated to feature eight top-100 prospects per Baseball America and six per MLB Pipeline, along with three in the Top-50 by BA and MLBP, alongside two from Baseball Prospectus. If you believe Colt Emerson, Lazaro Montes, Cole Young, Harry Ford, et al are a brood of star-level talents, it’s appropriate to eschew many trades, because the future will soon shine with nine-carat diamond filled with brilliant youths at almost every position. Even if you’re wary of some of the farm’s better players but buy in to most or several of them as stars, I can understand the reluctance to cash in their potential energy for the kinetic, present stardom of a player like Luis Robert Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Isaac Paredes, or, to a lesser but still impactful extent, Jazz Chisholm Jr. or Brent Rooker.

However, the most recent effort the Mariners made to vastly boost their roster at the deadline moved a more prominent headliner reputationally than any of the current M’s farmhands. This requires some context, of course, but Noelvi Marte’s somewhat erratic pathway and the shadow cast by Julio Rodríguez and Jarred Kelenic should not diminish his stature as a prospect. Marte was a preseason Top-30 prospect in three different seasons and across eight lists by BA, BP, and MLBP, peaking at #18, #15, and #11 respectively in the preseason lists ahead of his being dealt at the 2022 deadline. Without getting into too terribly much depth, it is vital to understand that the minor leagues in 2024 are seen as being as thin and devoid of standout talent as they have been in a long time, an affliction that was far from the case in 2022. For an easy comparison, the pre-2022 prospects by MLB Pipeline ahead of Marte were Bobby Witt Jr., Adley Rutschman, Julio Rodríguez, Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene, Grayson Rodriguez, Gabriel Moreno, Anthony Volpe, CJ Abrams, and Francisco Alvarez. The top three players were and are better than any three players currently in the minors, while the rest of the group both were at the time and, save for Torkelson, have borne out to be between above-average regulars to All-Stars and at least three bona fide superstars.

This is the range of ranking, roughly, that Colt Emerson finds himself in, as most evaluator’s top prospect in Seattle’s system. While I do not share that perspective, I believe he is near the top, and that he’s an excellent prospect who could become an excellent big leaguer. He is not, nor is any prospect in the Mariners’ system at present, worth sacrificing an AL West title for. The best player “on the market” right now is Luis Robert Jr., by both present skills and potential, combined with three years of additional contract control at a reasonable cost as team options. At a minimum, essentially, Robert is likely to merit a qualifying offer should he reach free agency, meaning Seattle could either retain his services or acquire another Top-40 or 80 pick, another crack at selecting a prospect like those they’ve turned into top talents in the past year.

I believe a trade for Luis Robert Jr. would require something significant, an offer like C Harry Ford, SS Colt Emerson, OF Jonatan Clase, RHP Michael Morales, and OF Dominic Canzone. Guerrero would require less, both due to his mere 1.5 years under contract, as well as the lofty pay he commands this year and will secure again next year through arbitration thanks to his past brilliance. The price tag and Guerrero’s defensive incapability will drive down his price tag despite his fame. I doubt such a deal would require Emerson or Lazaro Montes, who are for me the most challenging players to part with in the system.

In even my wildest dreams, I do not envision a world where Seattle secures both Jr.’s, Robert and Guerrero, which is one of the only scenarios that could actually have an astronomical impact on the M’s prospect pipeline. Yes, a deal for one of the big fish of this deadline would cost a handful of top farmhands. And yet, if Seattle believes in the options they have internally, there are still plenty of possible performers who could arrive on the same timeline as the youths in Arkansas and below. That deal I suggested for Robert is lesser than the haul that delivered the Padres OF Juan Soto, but Robert is a lesser player with a more flawed history. He would demand a hefty package, but even what’s suggested above retains Cole Young, Lazaro Montes, Felnin Celesten, Michael Arroyo, Jonny Farmelo, Logan Evans, or Tyler Locklear, in other words retaining six of the precious eight top-100 prospects by Baseball America. Hardly “selling off the farm”.

Prospects are individual players, worthy of individual appraisal and evaluation far beyond the numbers aligned near their names. However, they also are signed and developed so that they can help the MLB club win games, none of Emerson, Montes, Farmelo, Celesten, or Arroyo are liable to play for the big league club until 2027, a year where J.P. Crawford will have reached free agency, while Cal Raleigh, Logan Gilbert, and likely Luis Castillo will be in their final year under contract. Hopefully, the core of that M’s club will be a contender, augmented by brilliant rookie or in an exceptional circumstance sophomore campaigns by some of the youngsters listed above. In a dream scenario, Seattle’s rotation remains going strong, 1,000s of innings later and older, and that roster is in a more commanding position leading the AL West than this one. I don’t, however, feel a frenzied panic to narrow that group’s margins somewhat to improve this current AL West leading club. Particularly if that means going after a long-term upgrade like Robert, who just so happens to have team options that would allow him to remain a Mariner all the way through... 2027.