5 Free Agents that make sense for Seattle Mariners to sign

1. Aaron Sanchez, RHP

I honestly can’t believe Aaron Sanchez isn’t yet signed. It leads me to believe that the shoulder injury that ended his 2019 season is worse than we know. Now granted, Sanchez hasn’t produced at any significant level since 2016. But the combination of his talent, age, and upside should be enticing to most teams.

Sanchez relies heavily on his sinker, which thanks to a juiced ball and a change in approach from MLB hitters, has caused many similar pitchers to suffer. What’s interesting about Sanchez is that his best pitch might be his curveball. It ranked in the 91st percentile for spin rate in 2019.

But up until he joined the Astros, Sanchez barely threw the pitch. In 2018 he only threw the curveball 12%, the least used pitch in his arsenal. And in 2016 and 2017, the usage hovered around 16%.

Sanchez’s fastball velocity has dropped pretty quickly over the past 3 years, but he still averages roughly 94 mph on his sinker, which is plenty good enough. We have watched his upside up close as he threw a combined no-hitter against the Mariners shortly after arriving in Houston.

Sanchez is quite a mystery. He has good raw stuff but has never been great at missing bats. He has average at best control. He does produce a lot of groundballs and up until last season, did a great job of keeping the ball in the ballpark.

But the numbers don’t lie and since 2016, Sanchez has been just a tick above replacement level. And if this was 5 years ago, I probably wouldn’t be all that interested. But something has changed in the Mariners organization recently: they became really good at developing arms.

Whether it is with their draftees or MLB guys, Seattle has shown an ability to get more from their arms than previous employers. I can’t tell you exactly what Sanchez needs to do get back on track, but I do trust the Mariners to figure it out and set up a plan to make it happen.

Maybe it doesn’t work out and Sanchez just can’t turn things around. But at that point, it will have cost the Mariners just a couple million dollars and a few games in a season where the win total won’t be the measure of success.

Anytime a team can chase upside without any downside on their end of things, they should be interested. This goes for all teams, not just rebuilding ones. But something cool happens when you’re honest with the fan base and tell them not to expect the playoffs in 2020: you get to take a risk without pissing them off. Sanchez is a risk, but a good one. I’d like to see him in a uniform come March.