Seattle Mariners could be .500 team with these 5 moves

Trade Justin Dunn to Colorado for Jon Gray

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?