Jose A. Ferrer fuels Mariners fans' worst fears with dreadful first impression

The Seattle Mariners tried really hard to sell Jose A. Ferrer as being totally worth giving up Harry Ford in a trade. Honestly, you could kind of tell they knew they had to distract everyone from how their prized new bullpen addition came with a career 4.48 ERA.

So, that's how it started. And here's how it's going: through three Cactus League appearances, the left-handed Ferrer has allowed five runs on five hits, two walks and a hit by pitch.

That's a 22.50 ERA, which makes this spring the exact opposite of Ferrer's spring experience with the Washington Nationals last year, when he had a 0.00 ERA in 10 appearances. Something feels wrong, and the Mariners must hope it's not their assessment that the 26-year-old was worth sacrificing a top-100 prospect.

The new Jose A. Ferrer isn't proving to be any better than the old Jose A. Ferrer

It is only spring training, of course, and early in spring training to boot. It's too early to disregard the idea of Ferrer in the Mariners' bullpen, which boils down to him being at worst a competent second lefty and at best a late-inning weapon.

His 4.36 ERA does obscure real qualities, after all. He's walked fewer than two batters per nine innings in each of the last two seasons. And while he hasn't racked up whiffs in the majors, anyone who can throw strikes and has high-90s heat should only be an adjustment or two away.

“When I first got here, the first thing they told me was these are the things you need to get good at: increase my strikeouts and continue to work on my slider,” Ferrer said though an interpreter to Tyler Kepner of The Athletic. “And it was good for me because those are things that I knew that I had to get better.”

The velocity is still there, as Ferrer is averaging 96.8 mph on his sinker. And he is throwing his slider more, featuring it 22.8 percent of the time after going to it at only 7.5 percent last season.

But the results? They're not so good even on a granular level. His overall whiff rate is just 19.2 percent, down from last year's below-average mark of 24.8. He's given up three doubles, including one on a 113 mph bolt by Bryce Eldridge on Wednesday:

Given all this, Ferrer hasn't exactly given himself a head start in outrunning the doubt. And the doubt is strong. Whereas the Mariners see Ferrer as an impact guy, he looks like another Gregory Santos from another angle.

If this proves to be the worst we'll see of Ferrer all season, then maybe he will be Gabe Speier's co-lefty and a key stone in the bridge to Andrés Muñoz. But if it instead proves to be a sign of things to come, well, at least it won't be a surprise.