FanSided Offseason Simulation, Day 2: The Seattle Mariners have too much starting pitching

Day two of FanSided’s MLB offseason simulation is nearly in the books, and Colby Patnode and I have had a very busy 24 hours. If you’re one of the many Mariners fans that have consistently banged the table for more starting pitching, then this is the article for you.

In the beginning stages of the offseason plan, our goal was to reboot positional areas we felt have been too neglected. With José Martinez, James McCann, and Delino DeShields in, and Daniel Vogelbach, Dee Gordon, and Ryon Healy out, we feel that we’ve made great first steps in doing just that. We’re still looking at ways to supplement certain positions over the next day, though we’ll dive further into that later in the article.

Since our last article, however, our focus has strictly been on pitching, pitching, and more pitching. Perhaps too much pitching. Actually, definitely too much pitching. But we have a plan to rectify that as well. Let’s get into the first deal of the day.

DISCLAIMER: NONE OF THE FOLLOWING ACQUISITIONS ARE REAL. THEY ARE A PART OF AN OFFSEASON SIMULATION GAME. 

TRADE: CLEVELAND INDIANS

The Indians have a surplus of starting pitching and their GM in this simulation was looking to move at least one or two pieces from their rotation. We saw a fit with Danny Salazar, who missed the entire 2018 season and has seemingly been frozen out of Cleveland’s rotation by the likes of Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer. Salazar is 38-33 in his career with a 10.89 K/9 and 3.56 FIP.

Given Salazar’s recent shoulder surgery, we’re unsure about his durability in a starter’s role, though he would likely find himself near the top of our rotation initially. However, we feel that Salazar may be better suited for a role as a late-inning, high-leverage reliever, and strongly believe that he could be dominant there.

Deducting Ben Gamel from the equation has now left a huge hole in left field for us, but the amount of salary we’ve been able to relieve ourselves of over the course of this simulation have allowed us to dream bigger about the position. Therefore, Gamel became expendable and helped us supplement a position group of much greater need.

Losing Wyatt Mills is also a pretty tough blow to a farm system that stars very little young, quality pitching. Well, about that.

TRADE: ATLANTA BRAVES

Over the past week, we had some preliminary discussions with multiple teams about moving James Paxton, but things really kicked into high gear on Monday. By Tuesday night, we had three significant offers from the Yankees, Astros, and Brewers. The Yankees, however, quickly moved on and acquired Madison Bumgarner from the Giants in a similar package to the one they had offered us.

Colby and I debated the other two offers we had received for a good two hours or so, but finally decided to just wait another day and talk to some other teams. That’s when the Nationals came calling the next morning, and we worked towards a monster deal both Colby and I loved. But the deal was contingent upon a couple things going right for the Nats in free agency, and the Braves had just made us a massive offer as well.

In the end, we came to an agreement with Atlanta to send Paxton for four young, controllable players who are either MLB-ready or close to it. Headlining the deal is MLB Pipeline’s 29th overall prospect, right-handed starting pitcher Kyle Wright. Wright made his MLB debut for the Braves in September, as a reliever, but could find his way into our rotation as early as Opening Day.

Joining Wright is lefty Max Fried, a fringe rookie who has done the bulk of his Major League work as a reliever but should find a home in our rotation at some point in 2019, if not immediately. Fried is still extremely valuable as a reliever, posting a 2.93 xFIP and a 12.8 K/9 in nine relief appearances last year.

The other two players we received in the deal, Kyle Muller and Greyson Jenista, would likely slot in the top four of our farm system right away. Muller is a left-handed starter who’s roughly a year away from his Major League debut. In 25 combined starts in Single-A, High-A, and Double-A last year, Muller struck out 129 batters over the course of 139.2 innings pitched. Jenista, the 49th overall pick of this year’s MLB Draft, slashed .265/.328/.395 in his first half year of professional baseball.

This was a great way for us to balance beefing up a notoriously poor farm system and staying competitive in 2019, something we feel Jerry Dipoto is likely aiming to do in a real James Paxton trade.

Now adding Fried and Wright to the mix, along with Salazar, we have eight pitchers on the 40-man roster who all could realistically start for us. So, we should be good now, right? We’re done, yeah? Noooooooooooope.

SIGNED: YUSEI KIKUCHI

Contract: Six years, $56 million

In our most recent move, we successfully won the bidding war for Yusei Kikuchi of the NPB. Kikuchi, 27, is making his way overseas this offseason after dominating the Japanese circuit. Despite dealing with some shoulder concerns, Kikuchi managed a 3.08 ERA while striking out 153 batters in 163.2 innings pitched.

Just $2 million more than what we proposed for Kikuchi in our offseason plan last week, we felt that this was the right move for 2019 and beyond, even with the excess amount of starters currently on the roster. In real life, any contract offered to Kikuchi would likely scale in dollar amounts each year, as we proposed in the offseason plan, but backloaded contracts were not allowed in this simulation. So in this reality, Kikuchi falls in at a $9.3 million AAV.

Kikuchi is the youngest starter on the free agent market, coming in right at the center of his prime. It’s a perfect fit for us as we balance the present and future of this ballclub.