Seattle Mariners Wrap Up FanSided Off-Season Sim

It was a long 3 days for the faux Seattle Mariners in our FanSided Off-Season Simulation. Our 3 day journey is officially over, and while Day 3 was much quieter than the first 2, we still have some moves to discuss.

If you missed out on what we did on Day 1 and Day 2 and want a full breakdown, you can click on the links and read all about it. In layman’s terms, we have added Yu Darvish, Shohei Ohtani, Eugenio Suarez and Michael Taylor. We have lost Kyle Seager, Nick Vincent, Ariel Miranda and Chase De Jong.

With our starting lineup and rotation basically set, we spend the day looking to improve around the fringes and in the bullpen. We were not able to accomplish everything we wanted to, but we are most certainly satisfied with the results.

Without further ado, here are the last 3 moves we made in our FanSided Off-Season Simulation!

Sign Bryan Shaw to a 3 year, $21 million Contract

Bryan Shaw, the 30 year old former reliever for the Cleveland Indians, can be described in 1 word. That word is reliability. Shaw has appeared in at least 64 games each of the past 6 seasons. He has posted an ERA of 3.52 or better each season.

Shaw has a solid career 8.03 K/9 rate with good control.Shaw is a ground ball pitcher to the max. The combination of solid strike out numbers with a high ground ball rate make Shaw and appealing option to many teams. However; the market in our sim didn’t value him properly, so we decided to jump into the mix.

Shaw does not carry the label as a “proven closer” which could hurt his free agent value. Shaw may not have “closer stuff” but he has the back-end bullpen pedigree and the durability to help replace Vincent.

Sign Curtis Granderson to a 1 year, $7 Million Contract

While on the surface, adding Granderson to a young outfield might not make sense. After all, we already have Ben Gamel, Guillermo Heredia, and Mitch Haniger. In addition, we added Michael Taylor and Raimel Tapia. How will we juggle all these players? I’m not sure.

What I do know is that both Heredia and Gamel have yet to put up a consistent big league season. Mitch Haniger has spent a ton of time on the DL and Tapia has just 70 career games in the big leagues.

I wrote about why adding a veteran like Granderson makes sense. In retrospect, signing Jarrod Dyson to similar terms would have made more sense, so I’ll take the heat on missing there. But “Grandy” provides a solid veteran in the outfield with good pop and walk skill.

With all the questions surrounding the outfield, adding a proven commodity provides a safety net at a reasonable price.

Sign Fernando Rodney to a 1 year, $2 Million Contract w/ Appearance Incentives

That is right! It is time to bring back the “Rodney Coaster”! Relax. relax. Fernando Rodney is a lot better than you remember. Yes he walks a lot of guys. Yes he will blow saves, and yes he is terrifying to watch with a 1 run lead.

However; what Rodney does actually makes him a valuable bullpen piece. Rodney has had a 10+ K/9 over the last 2 seasons, and has a ground ball rate above 50% every year since 2009 with the exception of 2014 (48.6%).

Jerry Dipoto has recently said that getting high K, high GB guys are almost impossible without paying a substantial cost. Rodney falls into that category, without costing anything. Rodney has closing experience, so adding him into the mix in the 7th or 8th inning, with the potential to close for the Mariners makes a ton of sense.

Whats Next?

In the coming days, we will put together an overview of how the “new roster” looks and what it does to the payroll. We moved a lot of pieces, but did we get any better? We will break down that question, and take one final look at our experiment. We will talk about regrets, deals we walked away from, and whether or not we succeeded in our goal.

Next: Mariners Busy Day 1 of Off-Season Sim

Feel free to let us know what you think. Did we ruin the Mariners? Did we make them better? Or worse? You be the judge.