Seattle Mariners: FanSided Offseason Simulation Day 1 Recap

TRADE WITH THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES

If you’ve been keeping tabs on our site this offseason, you’ll know we love us some Chris Archer. We’ve posted mock trades revolving around him and even included him in our offseason plan. We were very much willing to match the package we proposed in our offseason plan, but wound up coming away with Archer (and one of the Pirates’ top prospects) for an even cheaper package. So yeah, we’re pretty happy.

We had talks with the Pirates’ faux GM a few days ago about Archer and even came close to a deal that would have sent Domingo Santana their way. But they wound up going a different direction in acquiring an outfielder, which left our discussion more or less dead. However, yesterday, we were able to revisit the topic and we were asked to provided our best offer.

Initially, it was Juan Then and Devin Sweet for Archer straight up. Then, the Pirates mentioned their interest in 19-year-old right-handed pitching prospect Natanael Garabitos and offered utility man Kevin Kramer to us for our troubles.

We were thrilled to get Archer on his own, but when Kramer came into play, that set our excitement through the roof. Kramer has struggled in his limited time at the Major League level thus far, but has yet to even graduate prospect status. In 2018, he dominated the MiLB circuit to the tune of a 141 wRC+ with 15 home runs and 59 RBIs in 129 games. Given the history of success with his bat and his defensive flexibility, he’s a great fit for our roster in its current state and is an absolute steal in our eyes.

Of course, losing three prospects never feels good. But we’re confident that if Archer is able to turn things around as a Mariner, he could theoretically earn us ten times the package we gave up and then some at the deadline, or next offseason. This was a big win for us.