Mariners Trade Rumors: Team Throwing Kitchen Sink At Tampa For David Price

We’ve been speculating, hearing rumors, whispers, various reports, that the Seattle Mariners are in talks with the Tampa Bay Rays to acquire LHP David Price and/or utility man Ben Zobrist.

While many question whether Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik has the ability to pull off such a blockbuster, we may be about to find out just how ballsy Trader Jack can be.

According to a recent tweet by Ollie Connolly, baseball insider for MLB.com’s Outside Pitch, things are getting interesting.

According to the report, the Mariners are thought to be willing to deal “almost anything” to acquire Price. The lack of Zobrist wouldn’t kill any deal but the Mariners would really like to add him to the deal as well.

The deal would mark the end of Taijuan Walker‘s career in Seattle as he is believed to be the cornerstone piece to this trade. Other potential pieces include but are not limited to: Nick Franklin, Brad Miller, Danny Hultzen, Dustin Ackley, Brandon Maurer, James Paxton, D.J. Peterson and Patrick Kivlehan.

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Adding Price for the rest of this season and all of next would give Seattle arguably the best 1-2-3 rotation in the game with Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma on either side of Price.

And if previous reports still hold true, and Price isn’t willing to negotiate a long-term extension with the M’s, they could presumably deal him by next year’s deadline and get a decent return. Not as big as what they give up this year, but at least it’s something.

But if, let’s just say for the sake of argument, the Mariners get Price and Zobrist and go on to win the World Series. You think Price might change his mind about signing? I do.

Again, no deal is imminent at this time, but both sides know that they have 11 days to get this thing done if they want to.