Mariners Trade Proposal: Marlins and Brian Anderson

The Mariners are going to need a replacement for Kyle Seager at third. Many were hoping that it was going to be the homegrown Austin Shenton, but he was traded to Tampa for Diego Castillo. So now, we either wait to see how long until Noelvi Marte is called up and if he makes the move, or see if they find an actual replacement. This is where Brian Anderson comes into play.

Anderson is going to be 29 and is due $5 million from the Marlins this year. He will hit his final year of arbitration in 2023 before becoming a free agent. These are the types of players that the Marlins normally make available. He’s got good pop, posting a .263/.347/.423 so far in his career. The slugging expectation should be higher than that, as it dropped to .378 in 2021 due to a shoulder injury. He actually slugged .467 in 2019/2020, which is a better indicator.

He’s not a bad defender either. Baseball Reference gives him a consistently above-average number there, 0.8, 0.5, 0.4 over the last three seasons.

Before getting into writing this, I actually reached out to Ely Sussman, the managing editor over at Fish Stripes. I wanted to get a better idea of how the Marlins might value Brian Anderson, as well as his potential availability in a trade.

"“Ultimately, I’d be surprised if they moved him this winter. The shoulder surgery complicates his market value and he does a lot of things that complement the current Marlins roster. Feels much more likely that he’s on the trade block in July if the team is once again out of contention…That being said, the biggest farm system need for them is infielders (2B/SS/3B) at High-A and above. Somebody like Kaden Polcovich should interest them.”"

Kaden Polcovich huh? We might have to wait until July to see it happen, but he’s a good piece for sure.

That’s not too much of an ask, and I think actually makes for a good starting point for building some trades for Anderson. I’m gonna throw a couple of options out there that I think the Marlins might be interested in. I’ll approach it from three different angles, but we start by getting them some youth for down the line.