Seattle Mariners: The four trades Jerry Dipoto actually lost

THE SOGGY ARM DEBACLE

This is the other “big one,” though it’s definitely aged well for the Mariners sake over the last year or so. Even though it worked as two separate trades, this ultimately became a three-team deal in which Mallex Smith was the best player dealt. But Smith was never the play for the M’s and was always going to Tampa, so it’s hard to fault Dipoto for dealing him away.

Dipoto did, however, make good on that by bringing Smith back this past offseason. Well before that, this deal went from a power play to a complete disaster in a matter of months. A “soggy arm” turned into a UCL tear, which resulted in Tommy John surgery, and Drew Smyly never pitched a single inning for the Mariners outside of Spring Training.

In the deal, the Mariners gave up two of their better prospects at the time in Luiz Gohara and Ryan Yarbrough. Given how bad Seattle’s farm system was, this hurt deeply. But Gohara hasn’t amounted to much, struggling with his conditioning and now dealing with a shoulder injury that’s kept him off the field for the entirety of the 2019 season thus far.

The two pieces that still kinda sting are Yarbrough and Thomas Burrows. But both are simply relievers at this point, though Yarbrough has started and piggybacked on occasion for the Rays. Still, in hindsight, the M’s didn’t lose a whole lot of value in this deal and have appeared to avoid total disaster, but it’s still goes down as a loss in the grand scheme of things.