Seattle Mariners could be .500 team with these 5 moves

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The Seattle Mariners are going to struggle in 2020. The AL West is getting better and the team is still rebuilding. But they could hang for a while with a few moves.

Now, let me be as clear about this as I can, right off the top: THE MARINERS SHOULD NOT GO THIS DIRECTION. THEY WILL NOT GO THIS DIRECTION. AND THEY ARE BETTER OFF FOR IT. Hopefully, the all caps text made that clear. This isn’t an article calling on GM Jerry Dipoto to completely change course.

No, I have no issues with the rebuild and have been one of its biggest supporters over the past year. But sometimes, in the dead of winter with rumors slowing to a trickle, you just want to have some fun and do a little experiment.

So our quest today is to find out exactly what it would take to get the 2020 Mariners to be a .500 team, or thereabouts. How much money would it take, what would the prospect cost be, and would it even be worth it? But before we can do that, we need a baseline.

Seattle won 68 games last year but obviously the rosters are going to be different and there are a thousand variables to figure out. For example, the Mariners were without their best player, Mitch Haniger, for 100 games. That hurts. But they also had Edwin Encarnacion for half the season, a luxury they wouldn’t have this year. And guys like Anthony Bass, Domingo Santana, and Omar Narvaez have left.

We also need to assume some regression for guys like Austin Nola and Tom Murphy. However, it is fair to expect growth from guys like J.P. Crawford, Yusei Kikuchi, and a healthy Haniger. With all these variables, let’s just begin our hypothetical exercise with the same win total they had last year.

Assuming this is a 68 win roster, that means we need to add at least 13 wins to finish .500. Since we aren’t retroactively beginning this exercise, all moves made by the Mariners are already official. We are still working with budget restrictions, giving ourselves roughly the same payroll the team had the last time they were competitive, which is about $170 million.

Currently, the Mariners are at around $100 million, giving us $70 million to play with. And those are our restrictions. Our only goal is to make the 2020 team as good as possible without blowing our budget. None of the moves you’re about to read make any sense in reality, which is why I have created this alternate reality.

With the understanding that this entire experiment is just for giggles, let’s get started turning the current Mariners roster into a 2020 contender.

Trade J.P. Crawford, Jarred Kelenic, and Jake Fraley for Francisco Lindor

CLEVELAND, OHIO – MAY 04: Francisco Lindor #12 of the Cleveland Indians taunts Edwin Encarnacion #10 of the Seattle Mariners after Encarnacion was called out at first on review to end the top of the sixth inning at Progressive Field on May 04, 2019, in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images) /

We have a lot of ground to make up and only one off-season to do it. This requires acquiring at least one star. And acquiring a star isn’t easy. Cleveland may not even be considering trading Lindor, but after their weird decision to give up Corey Kluber for peanuts, anything is possible.

The Mariners give up their current shortstop, #1 prospect, and a solid 4th outfielder with upside for 2-years of MVP candidate Francisco Lindor. Currently, Steamer projects J.P. Crawford to be a 2.1 win player in 2020, with Fraley and Kelenic worth a total of 0.1.

Lindor is projected to be a 5.9 WAR player, giving Seattle a 3.7 win boost in 2020, while sacrificing their best chance at a star for 2022 and beyond. Lindor may be worth this package to a contender in real life (and then some) but the Mariners aren’t there.

But in our alternate reality, Seattle is very much trying to win this year and adding Lindor to your lineup is a great way to do just that. Crawford and Fraley both make the minimum, while Lindor is projected to earn $16.7 million in arbitration. With Kelenic not on the 40 man roster yet, he is not a factor in our salary swap and the Mariners have added $15.5 million of payroll for nearly 4 wins.

Adding Lindor’s projected 3.7 wins brings our total to just under 72 wins and sets us up for our next big move, with at least 9 wins needed to reach our goal of 81 wins in 2020.

Sign Hyun-Jin Ryu to 3-year, $60 million contract

WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 06: Hyun-Jin Ryu #99 of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitches in the first inning against the Washington Nationals in Game 3 of the NLDS at Nationals Park on October 6, 2019, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images) /

The Mariners will need a much better rotation to reach our 81 win goal and while Dipoto prefers to trade, they need to add talent without losing some at this point. Hyun-Jin Ryu is coming off a career and he will cost quite a bit to sign, especially with all the other big-name arms off the market.

But like I said, Seattle needs a significant, proven upgrade in their rotation, and Ryu’s last 50 starts have been #1 quality. He can miss bats, gets groundballs, doesn’t walk anybody, and despite turning 33 in March, he doesn’t have a ton of mileage left on his arm.

Ryu doesn’t replace anybody in the rotation, as the Mariners have just Marco Gonzalez, Yusei Kikuchi, and Justus Sheffield as “locks”. The team has added Kendall Graveman in real life, but his contract is so small and placement in the bullpen is likely to happen sooner than later.

Seattle would love to get another 4.9 fWAR season out of him, but even if he gets the Steamer projected 2.9 fWAR, he is still a good bargain at $20 million per season. Obviously, the age and durability concerns are slowing down his market, but when he does pitch, he has a floor of a #3 starter.

Tacking on his $20 million salaries to the $15.5 million we took in the Lindor trade, and we have spent half of our allotted $70 million to add 6.6 wins to our 68 game starting point. So to reach our goal, we have to add 7-8 wins to our current 73-74 win unit.

We are running out of cash fast, and finding cheap impact will be tough, but let’s see what we can do.

3. Sign Marcell Ozuna to a 4-year, $68 million contract

WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 14: Marcell Ozuna #23 of the St. Louis Cardinals attempts to make the catch on an RBI double by Anthony Rendon #6 of the Washington Nationals in the third inning of game three of the National League Championship Series at Nationals Park on October 14, 2019, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

So in a scenario where Seattle is trying to win in 2020, trading Mitch Haniger doesn’t make a lot of sense. He’s a good bet to get you 3-5 wins and trading him leaves open another outfield spot. If Seattle wanted to compete in 2020, they’d need to add an OF, and frankly a really good one too.

As of right now, the starting OF would be Haniger in RF, Mallex Smith in CF, and Kyle Lewis in LF. Can you see the issue? Smith is coming off a bad season at the plate and Lewis needs time in AAA to work on his contact issues. It isn’t an outfield that screams “above-average”.

Now, add Marcell Ozuna to left field and slot him anywhere between 2-6 in the lineup, and you’re starting to get somewhere. The 29-year-old LF is a pretty safe player who will provide league-average OBP, above-average power, and good contact skills to be a 110 wRC+ to go with good defense in LF.

He is likely to sit somewhere in the 2.5 WAR range, but Steamer projects him a 3.1 fWAR in 2020 and those 3 wins are critical for us to reach our goal. Adding 3 wins would get us around the 77 win mark, but also takes a good chunk out of our remaining $35 million budget, giving us roughly $17 million to find us 4-5 wins to reach our goal.

But Ozuna hit’s the ball really hard and is still young enough to provide his solid return for the length of the contract. There aren’t a ton of 3 win players running around that don’t cost $20 million per year or cost a small handful of useful prospects and Ozuna fills our biggest need.

Now, to find those last few wins to reach our goal.

Trade Justin Dunn to Colorado for Jon Gray

DENVER, CO – AUGUST 16: Jon Gray #55 of the Colorado Rockies pitches against the Miami Marlins in the first inning of a game at Coors Field on August 16, 2019, in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images) /

Yeah, so this one stings a bit. Trading 6 years of Justin Dunn for just 2 years of Jon Gray is something the real Mariners would never do, but in our alternate reality, Seattle needs impact arms to reach our goal and Gray may be the best one available.

Gray misses a lot of bats, gets a lot of groundballs, throws hard, and is just 28-years-old, with a pretty solid track record despite pitching in an offensive haven in Colorado. Gray has proven to be reasonably durable over the past 4 years and flashes #2 stuff for extended periods of time.

He will be a free agent after 2021, just like Lindor, so Seattle would be backing themselves into a bit of a corner (which is why they are smart not to pursue this avenue in real life), but in our reality, they are only concerned with 2020 and 2021.

Gray likely slots into the #2 spot of the rotation and Steamer does project a 3.5 fWAR, giving him a 2.5 win upgrade over Dunn, though at a cost of roughly $5 million as Gray is arbitration 2 eligible. Still, a 2.5 win upgrade for just $5 million is pretty solid, at least in the short-term.

Adding Gray brings our available budget to just around $12 million and our projected win total to 79-80 wins. So we have some money left to spend and still have prospects like Julio Rodriguez, Logan Gilbert, Justus Sheffield, George Kirby, and Noelvi Marte left to trade if we so choose.

But with a solid looking rotation, it may be time to look at the bullpen to attempt to stabilize the most fragile element of the club. Or is it?

5. Sign Edwin Encarnacion to a 1-year, $10 million deal

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – JUNE 06: Edwin Encarnacion #10 of the Seattle Mariners hits an RBI single to score Dylan Moore #25 of the Seattle Mariners to tie the game 6-6 in the ninth inning against the Houston Astros during their game at T-Mobile Park on June 06, 2019 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images) /

Come on, who doesn’t miss the parrot? After looking at the market for a quality reliever to stabilize the bullpen, I came to the realization that there isn’t a perfect guy. A lot of the most stable arms are off the market and spending the rest of my budget on a few guys to add maybe one win total wasn’t that appealing.

So instead, I decided to add the remaining biggest weakness, 1B/DH. The real Mariners will use Evan White and Daniel Vogelbach at the two spots, and they’ll still do that here, just playing matchup with Encarnacion in the mix. Using 3 players for 2 spots isn’t ideal, but neither is having a complete unknown at 1B when trying to compete.

Signing E5 allows Seattle to remain patient with Evan White and gives them a viable bat if Vogelbach’s second-half nightmare returns. He raises the floor. Now the difference between White and Vogelbach to Encarnacion may not be huge, but every win counts and Encarnacion is a safe guy to bet on.

The added value depends on how the Mariners use the trio, but let’s estimate that Encarnacion is worth at least 1 win more than White and Vogelbach. With that in mind: here is where we end our experiment.

Our new starting lineup would look something like this:

Mallex Smith CF
Mitch Haniger RF
Francisco Lindor SS
Edwin Encarnacion 1B/DH
Marcell Ozuna LF
Kyle Seager 3B
Tom Murphy C
Vogelbach/White 1B/DH
Shed Long 2B

The new rotation would be something like this:

Marco Gonzalez
Jon Gray
Hyun-Jin Ryu
Yusei Kikuchi
Justus Sheffield

The bullpen remains largely the same, which isn’t great but there is some upside in the arms currently on the 40 man roster.

All in all, we traded away roughly 3.2 fWAR (Crawford 2.1, Dunn 1.0, Fraley 0.1), while bringing in a total of 16.9 fWAR, which nets us 13.7 WAR while spending nearly all of our $70 million budget. Adding the 13.7 WAR to our starting point of 68 wins lands us at 81.7 wins for 2020, and that is without any fall back from 2019 starters.

Overall, the roster laid out before you probably lands somewhere in between 75-87 wins in 2020 and costs you Kelenic, Crawford, Dunn, Fraley, and about $70 million and still likely leaves you with another 10 wins to find to compete for a wild card spot and very little money left to do it.

The fun thing about our experiment is that we can do it. It is possible (with a few liberties here and there) to take the current roster and turn it into a decent one in one winter. But it also proves that it isn’t wise.

Even by giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt on multiple fronts, the best we could do was a fringe .500 team with decent upside. So as much as we may crave it, there just isn’t a realistic path to go from bad to good in one winter, which is exactly why the Mariners are playing this well.

Perhaps a crazy winter is coming for Seattle and it may be as soon as one year from today. But the facts are pretty clear: the Mariners should stay the course and ignore the alternate route laid out in our alternate dimension.

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