Seattle Mariners Trade-a-Day: 5 More Roenis Elías Trades

Swimming through the vast market set for one of the Mariners’ most intriguing trade chips.

Roenis Elías is going to be traded within the next four-ish weeks. It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when,’ as the 30-year-old southpaw has sneakily become one of baseball’s best available relievers for this year’s trade season.

If you want the whole spiel on how Elías has done this and what exactly he’s worth on the market, I’d recommend checking out the mock trade I did a few days ago, in which I constructed a deal for him to Atlanta. In short, Elías’ ability to go multiple innings late in games, polarizing splits, and overall success this year have landed him on the radar of many teams.

It also helps that the relief market is drier than usual and even the league’s best teams, like the Cubs and Phillies, are in desperate need of bullpen upgrades across the board. Relievers have been costly commodities for buyers in recent years, and that price may have gone up even higher this year.

That’s great news for the Mariners. With what Elías has been able to accomplish this year, on his first arbitration year, will have teams lining up for his services, especially once the dust clears on the markets for Felipe Vázquez, Ken Giles, and Kirby Yates.

Elías isn’t of the caliber of those three relievers, and won’t be able to command the packages they will. But there are more than just three contending teams that will look to upgrade their bullpen over the next few weeks. A lot more.

So today, we’re going to mock not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE!!!!!!!!! deals with five different teams surrounding Elías. And that’s just scratching the surface on his potential market.